[HN Gopher] Program teaches prisoners coding so they can land te...
___________________________________________________________________
Program teaches prisoners coding so they can land tech jobs once
released
Author : apsec112
Score : 41 points
Date : 2021-02-04 17:56 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.thedenverchannel.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.thedenverchannel.com)
| underseacables wrote:
| In 2011-2014 I taught English and mathematics as a volunteer in a
| prison, and unless you've been there, nothing can prepare you for
| how truly awful America's prison system is. The federal system is
| a little better, but when you get down to state prisons it gets
| exponentially worse.
|
| In my humble opinion, we have a vengeance and retribution
| mentality towards prisons in this country, when we should have a
| rehabilitation and re-integration focus.
| alexashka wrote:
| If it made financial sense, there _would_ be rehabilitation and
| re-integration.
|
| In my humble opinion, we have a magical wishful thinking
| (should this, should that) mentality towards the way the world
| works, when we should have an evidence based, rational approach
| instead.
| crispyambulance wrote:
| It's really hard for an audience on HN to truly appreciate the
| situations incarcerated people find themselves in.
|
| I think it's fine to "teach prisoners coding" as along as the
| people involved are aware that to even get to that point, how
| much BASIC education has to be re-done or done for the first
| time. Moreover, things like resumes, job hunting, and relating
| to people in a work environment is something that these folks
| need to learn and practice. Most have never done that. I've not
| taught in prisons, but have done ABE (Adult Basic Ed, which is
| all but required for folks to get through before they can even
| start a GRE program, and which many parolees are required to
| enroll in).
|
| In other words, "learning to code" is great, but instruction
| for literacy, numeracy, and socialization HAVE TO OCCUR before
| that's even considered, otherwise it's just a cruel pipe-dream.
|
| We so lucky, most of us, to have grown up in an environment
| where learning achievement is expected and supported by
| responsible adults. Most of the incarcerated folks have lived a
| level of depravation that we can't even imagine.
| jandrese wrote:
| It's hard to improve the situation without people screaming
| about how you're _CODDLING MURDERERS_! Especially when it
| involves spending taxpayer money, even if it saves enormous
| sums in the long run due to reduced recidivism. Many voters
| are unhappy with anything less than recreating Dante 's
| Inferno, so it is politically risky to implement these
| reforms that have been so successful in other countries.
| alexashka wrote:
| > It's hard to improve the situation without people
| screaming about how you're CODDLING MURDERERS!
|
| Who? Twitter idiots?
|
| If you're going to take the weakest of strawman arguments
| for the opposing side, you're not going to get very far in
| your thinking.
|
| There are plenty of ideas that aren't politically risky
| that don't get implemented, that would positively affect
| criminals and non-criminals alike - what's your explanation
| of such phenomena?
|
| Blaming voters on the deeds of politicians has got to be
| one of the weakest strawmans I've heard in a while. It is
| the job of the politicians, domain experts and the media to
| present viable options for the populace to choose from. If
| the option chosen is shit, it isn't the person working 9-5
| and raising a family that was asked to choose who is at
| fault, I hope that much is obvious.
| giarc wrote:
| My grandfather and my high school science teacher both taught
| in youth "detention centres" for periods in their career. They
| both said students there were better behaved than regular
| schools. For the "inmates" (for lack of better term), school
| was a privilege and if they misbehaved, they couldn't attend.
| School was a good break from your cell/room.
| bluefirebrand wrote:
| Kind of funny that kids (and adults) often have a mentality
| that school is/was a prison, something they were sent to
| against their will.
|
| When people are in prison and school becomes something that
| can be taken away, it looks more like a privilege.
|
| Human brains are weird.
| WalterBright wrote:
| What I most enjoyed about school was being with my friends.
| lldbg wrote:
| I think that retribution, which is of course the principal
| component of justice, is a key part of prisons. Somewhere the
| scales must be balanced, and if not in prisons, where then?
| Should the assaulted be happy with the fact that the inmate
| will get a job?
|
| That is not to say that prisons should be blind to the fact
| that inmates will eventually be released. There are plenty of
| people who have committed no crime, but go hungry. Where is
| their free lunch?
| pwinnski wrote:
| > There are plenty of people who have committed no crime, but
| go hungry. Where is their free lunch?
|
| Yes, nobody should go hungry. Not in prison, not out of
| prison, nowhere.
| adamc wrote:
| I am interested in whether there is any actual evidence
| retribution works, in terms of recidivism. My first guess
| would be that the awful experiences in prison just fuck up
| people more.
| pwinnski wrote:
| Your first guess is borne out by the recidivism rate, which
| is in the high-80s nationwisde.
| ericd wrote:
| Some people think it's to get them to stop doing bad things
| to other people, not to get even.
| UncleMeat wrote:
| > I think that retribution, which is of course the principal
| component of justice, is a key part of prisons.
|
| One of the arguments that Foucault makes in Discipline and
| Punish is that prisons, by virtue of hiding the retribution
| from public view, can perform nearly arbitrarily heinous
| retributions on people. When we tore people apart in the
| street as punishment it was public and could provoke outrage.
| Now basically nobody knows what happens inside prisons.
| barrkel wrote:
| What makes you think retribution is the principal component
| of justice? That seems very wrong to me.
|
| Justice is a deep concept -
| https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/justice/ is an overview,
| and it's not short - but on plain sight, I'd say that since
| it is the public, through the medium of government, that
| enforces justice, it should do so with a utilitarian view.
|
| Society has a vital interest in reintegrating people who have
| been punished, so that they don't fall back into a life of
| crime as the only life available to them. If justice is
| mostly retribution, then society is not well served. Even
| further, society can profit from the valuable contributions
| of people who've learned the error of their ways.
| ndiscussion wrote:
| > Society has a vital interest in reintegrating people who
| have been punished
|
| Food for thought, but this is only true if we release them.
| For most of history, we simply executed criminals.
|
| In most of the world, that's still the case (thieves
| without hands etc).
|
| Without making a moral judgment on what's right or wrong,
| if most societies evolved that way, it probably means it's
| conducive to the long-term health and survival of
| societies. Survivorship bias and all that.
| slibhb wrote:
| > What makes you think retribution is the principal
| component of justice? That seems very wrong to me.
|
| It seems right to me. In my opinion, justice comes from the
| concept of reciprocity. In other words, if someone does
| bad, it is just that bad is done to them (retribution). The
| reverse is also true: it is just that good things occur to
| people who do good deeds.
|
| > Justice is a deep concept -
| https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/justice/ is an overview,
| and it's not short - but on plain sight, I'd say that the
| fact that it is the public, through the medium of
| government, that enforces justice, it should do so with a
| utilitarian view.
|
| It's wrong to write as if this is a closed question. There
| are plenty of philosophers who aren't utilitarians and who
| see justice grounded elsewhere than "whatever I think will
| be good for society".
| WalterBright wrote:
| The idea of prisons should be to simply keep people away
| from society so they cannot harm others. There's no need
| to heap punishment on top of that. That's medieval and
| doesn't belong in modern civilization.
| slibhb wrote:
| It's part of modern civilization for the same reason
| people enjoy it when the bad guy gets punished at the end
| of a movie. This is the essence of justice, whether you
| have the stomach to face it or not.
| barrkel wrote:
| Sure, it's not a closed question. I'm mostly pointing
| out, as an example, the fact that society operates the
| mechanics of justice these days, it is the interests of
| society that are paramount. Making individuals whole is a
| part of that, but avoiding repetition is also vital, or
| else the punishment plays a part in causing crime later.
| slibhb wrote:
| In my opinion you vastly overestimate your ability to
| answer questions like "what are the interests of
| society?" and "what causes crime?"
| barrkel wrote:
| I don't think I have the ability. I can, however, say
| with a some certainty that retribution is not principal
| component of justice, because a moment's consideration
| shows more considerations at play.
|
| Retribution had a place - in Babylonian times, when eye
| for an eye was the rule. Things have moved on.
| slibhb wrote:
| Things haven't moved on. All modern justice systems
| continue to be based on retribution. They seek to punish
| the guilty (proportionally to their crimes) and to
| exonerate the innocent. It's all well and good to argue
| "this punishment is too severe, it does not fit the
| crime". But to argue that "the world has moved on" from
| retributive justice is just naivete.
|
| If you're interested in a defense of retributive justice,
| read Kant:
|
| > Punishment by a court can never be inflicted merely as
| a means to promote some other good for the criminal
| himself or for civil society. Punishment can only be
| inflicted in response to a crime committed, i.e.,
| retributive justice only. A human being ought never to be
| treated merely as a means to an end as all human beings
| have an innate personality even thought they may be
| condemned to lose their civil personality. The law of
| punishment is a categorical imperative, and woe to him
| who crawls through the windings of eudaemonism in order
| to discover something that releases the criminal from
| punishment or even reduces its amount by the advantage it
| promises, in accordance with the pharisaical saying, "It
| is better for one man to die than for an entire people to
| perish." For if justice goes, then so does the value of
| human beings. However, what if a proposal comes forwards
| to preserve the life of a criminal sentenced to death in
| exchange for allowing dangerous experiments to be
| performed, so that physicians can learn something of
| benefit to the commonwealth? A court would reject with
| contempt such a proposal form a medical college, for
| justice ceases to be justice if it can be bought for any
| price whatsoever.
| alpha_squared wrote:
| > Should the assaulted be happy with the fact that the inmate
| will get a job?
|
| Um... what? This is borderline advocating for all sentences
| be for life.
|
| If a sentence is given and served, the convicted deserve a
| chance at living. The US has a terrifying and awful fetish
| for punishing lower/middle-class folks who commit some of the
| pettiest of crimes, many of which struggle to re-integrate
| with society if/when they're released and therefore continue
| to serve a sentence long after they're no longer in prison.
| Compared with, for example, a vast majority of white-collar
| crime that often has victims an order of magnitude or two
| greater than most petty crime.
| lldbg wrote:
| I don't think I advocated that all sentences should be for
| life, and I don't get how you got to there from what I
| wrote.
| crispyambulance wrote:
| You were complaining that inmates would deign to find
| work after being incarcerated.
|
| > Should the assaulted be happy with the fact that the
| inmate will get a job?
|
| YES, everyone should be happy if ex-felons are able to
| find work after leaving prison. Otherwise, they just go
| back their previous behaviors (eg ~80% recidivism). If
| they can't get work, that's effectively a "life
| sentence".
| lldbg wrote:
| I was not complaining about anything. They aren't ex-
| felons, after they are released, they are felons.
|
| I do not think you understood my original comment, since
| you keep quoting that sentence only. Where is the
| restitution to the aggrieved party? The assaulted, the
| robbed, the beaten, the raped? You pay for what you do,
| and if your enterprise is criminal, you pay in time
| behind bars. Personal responsibility. Why would anyone
| want to hire a wife-beater? There are millions of
| upstanding citizens out of work ...
| threatofrain wrote:
| > Where is the restitution to the aggrieved party? The
| assaulted, the robbed, the beaten, the raped? You pay for
| what you do, and if your enterprise is criminal, you pay
| in time behind bars. Personal responsibility. Why would
| anyone want to hire a wife-beater?
|
| Criminal law is about wrongs against the state. In
| regards to payment for restitution, how is the state
| being restored by somebody rotting in jail?
|
| What sort of payment is this that the state may end up
| even poorer than before? In fact, if serving in prison is
| payment, then I'd say it's the state that's paying for
| the prison and all the harms which follow.
|
| If the state should find itself awfully harmed from its
| own criminal justice policy, from where shall the state
| seek remedy?
| pwinnski wrote:
| You seem to have a very limited understanding of why
| people commit crimes, which makes for extremely
| uninformed opinions.
|
| Punishing those who commit crime demonstrably does little
| to nothing to dissuade them from future crime. Given an
| understanding of the reasons why many people commit
| crimes makes this obvious: by taking angry people without
| hope, and giving them more reasons to be angry and even
| less hope, we end up with an incredibly high recidivism
| rate. Meanwhile, harshly punishing those who've committed
| crimes usually doesn't make the victims of those crimes
| feel better, either.
|
| So if it's not benefitting victims, and making re-offense
| more likely, why do we do it? So third parties can feel a
| sense of self-righteousness that they call "justice?"
| That seems to be the primary reason!
|
| Sometimes people in dire straits do bad things, and hurt
| others. Punishment is reasonable, but objectively,
| rehabilitation is also needed. Restitution to victims,
| and victim statements, also help. We can look around the
| world and see objectively that there are many ways to do
| this better than we're doing, by any measure. It's both
| more humane, and more effective.
| lldbg wrote:
| Of course my opinions seem uninformed to you, when you
| intentionally misconstrue them as you have done.
| WalterBright wrote:
| If someone murdered a loved one of mine, I don't see how
| having the state execute them would make things any
| better for me. I'd be satisfied if they were simply
| imprisoned so they could not hurt others. Punishing them
| further wouldn't help me at all.
| mmcgaha wrote:
| I can empathize with how you feel (even how a victim could
| feel) but a public good will come from teaching prisoners a
| skill so they don't have to victimize someone else when they
| get out.
| lldbg wrote:
| You never _have_ to victimize someone, no matter your
| circumstances.
| echlebek wrote:
| > I think that retribution, which is of course the principal
| component of justice
|
| That ain't necessarily so, and not every penal system has
| that philosophy. If prisons turn out people who are
| unemployable, they will simply keep doing whatever they can
| do to make a living. If lawful society doesn't take them,
| someone else will. Justice has to work at the societal level.
| zamalek wrote:
| I say this knowing full-well that I might seek retribution if
| something awful were to ever happen to me or my loved ones,
| but:
|
| > I think that retribution, which is of course the principal
| component of justice, is a key part of prisons.
|
| No amount of retribution will ever be enough. The concept of
| making things right is a delusion that parents infect their
| children with.
|
| However, the most effective way to inflict retribution is to
| teach an individual the meaning of their actions and have
| them live with the guilt of those actions. Another word for
| that is rehabilitation.
|
| American prisons are based on childish like-for-like
| retribution (your limited someone's rights, you get your
| rights limited). It didn't work when I was 8, so why would it
| work for an adult? All that we achieve is sending people to
| crime college, where fellow inmates further numb moral fiber
| and empathy, then release graduated criminals back into the
| wild. That's certainly one way to make sure that there is
| always demand for retribution.
| titzer wrote:
| I can't think of anything more cruel and worse for society as
| a whole than to permanently damage some people because it
| feels vaguely cathartic and might serve as a "warning" to
| others.
| veryfancy wrote:
| > Should the assaulted be happy with the fact that the inmate
| will get a job?
|
| Yes.
| rendall wrote:
| > _Should the assaulted be happy with the fact that the
| inmate will get a job?_
|
| Heck yeah! If civil penalties have been assessed, how else
| are they going to get paid?
|
| Crazy how most Americans think even the smallest crime should
| mean life in prison plus anal rape
| ralusek wrote:
| What's crazy is that you think that most Americans think
| even the smallest crime should mean life in prison plus
| anal rape.
| rendall wrote:
| HN is marvelous, in that even the slightest hyperbole
| will be pointed out as incorrect. By "marvelous" of
| course I mean _tedious_
| benlivengood wrote:
| > Should the assaulted be happy with the fact that the inmate
| will get a job?
|
| Would the assaulted be happier having to work to support the
| attacker for the rest of their life?
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| >Should the assaulted be happy with the fact that the inmate
| will get a job?
|
| It was not until now that I came to realize that everyone in
| American prisons are actually there for assault. The mind
| reels.
| Layke1123 wrote:
| I upvoted you, but I want to make sure my reasons for doing
| so are accurate. This was sarcasm, yes? It might not be so
| obvious if others read through this so just want to
| clarify.
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| I was drily sarcastic yes, as it is obvious that very few
| people are in prison for assault any argument that makes
| an appeal to the emotions with the phrasing used is
| somewhat deserving of being punctured. I thought my
| response good at indicating the absurdity.
| lldbg wrote:
| Nowhere did I make that claim.
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| By stating your hypothetical "Should the assaulted be
| happy with the fact that the inmate will get a job?" you
| made a condition only sometimes encountered - violent
| crime - a reason to treat all criminals worse.
|
| I assumed that you did not actually believe that all
| criminals in America had assaulted someone, but if you
| did not believe it then arguing for the punishment of
| people who did not commit violent acts (by making it more
| difficult for them to get jobs when released) seems far
| worse than if you just did believe a ridiculous thing.
|
| And really by using in your argument an emotional
| hypothetical about the assaulted to argue for denying
| something to people who have not committed assault it
| becomes difficult to know exactly how to take it.
|
| The argument is hard to take seriously if you don't
| really believe it is true for all criminals, and it is
| difficult to believe you think it is true for all
| criminals.
| dr-detroit wrote:
| Its official: the bars are there to keep us in not them
| smattiso wrote:
| If all you are learning is how to build a React site you are
| going to have a bad time in a few years.
| 0xdeadbeefbabe wrote:
| I wonder if they'll have more empathy than a typical UI designer.
| StillBored wrote:
| This is nice and all, but why is everyone focused on "coding"
| trade schools? Can you really learn enough to make $200k a year
| in a "boot camp" style coding school? If so, why not doctors and
| lawyers too?
|
| So, i'm not a big supporter of these things because I think it
| trivializes the amount of effort it actually takes to be a useful
| team member. The people I work with are doing the logical
| equivalent of rebuilding the flight control surfaces of a
| helicopter while its flying in formation. These aren't the kinds
| of skills you learn in 6 weeks. Many of us have years of formal
| schooling combined with 10x that in personal learning hours
| before we even landed our first jobs. Add on a decade+ of
| professional work experience/etc. I'm not trying to sound
| arrogant, but I suspect that if someone tried to measure the
| knowledge required for some of these jobs people on this board
| hold, it would dwarf pretty much all but a few other professions.
| Its also not to say, that its not possible to be productive with
| a couple years of HS/AP level comp-sci classes and a year or two
| of toy programs (I landed my first programming job in HS, making
| barely more than minimum wage). Only that those jobs are the
| floor, and much harder to come by now that everyone and their
| brother is learning coding.
|
| So frankly, some people have the interest/drive/aptitude into
| making software engineering their life, and some peoples
| strengths lie elsewhere. I think its doing everyone a disservice
| not to provide other options to prisoners, be that AC repair, or
| law degrees.
| pwinnski wrote:
| At my company, we've had two people transfer over from non-dev
| department to our dev department after going through a coding
| bootcamp, and both have worked out well.
|
| They come in pretty junior, of course, and they're not making
| $200k either, but I'd say that anyone with the right mindset
| can learn what they need to learn at a bootcamp as easily as
| they can in an undergrad program, and anyone without the right
| mindset is going to struggle with either.
|
| There is MUCH more pure memorization required for doctors and
| lawyers, and it's not even close.
|
| That said, I agree overall: software development shouldn't be
| the only thing taught in prison--or any other similar program.
| gowld wrote:
| Coding school are popular because they are the easiest to
| automate with computer code.
|
| Anyway, everyone starts at entry-level before they get 10 years
| of experience.
| semanticsbitch wrote:
| When you can't use H1Bs to get cheap work, go for the
| incarcerated. Why bother caring for skilled middle class workers.
| iab wrote:
| Haven't they been punished enough
| llarsson wrote:
| Great initiative! Hopefully employers will not overlook these
| candidates because of their criminal record.
| dudul wrote:
| Good luck with that unfortunately. I can't remember the last
| time I joined a company that didn't run a background check on
| me.
| gowld wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ban_the_Box#California
|
| > California Fair Chance Act, which assists Californians with
| conviction histories to re-enter society by prohibiting
| employers from asking about conviction history before making
| a job offer.
| sokoloff wrote:
| Running a background check doesn't mean you can't accept
| certain negative content in that background.
|
| A background check produces _information_ not a _decision_.
| WrtCdEvrydy wrote:
| Usually a background check just means a credit check.
| dudul wrote:
| I meant it as a check for criminal record.
| WrtCdEvrydy wrote:
| Yeah, usually it's just a credit check... people are
| cheap and corporations are cheaper.
| tluyben2 wrote:
| I guess if they are significantly cheaper than others, people
| will hire them. There is a long way to $0 from the salaries
| people on HN say developers make in the US. I do not know any
| convicted people, however, I do know jobless people who were
| 'made redundant' by covid or before that and they would work
| for very little (enough to get by, but not more than that) if
| they could work from home as developer. I bet that goes for
| many people including ex convicts.
| dint wrote:
| See also: UnderDog Devs, a support group for formerly
| incarcerated developers transitioning into the software industry.
|
| https://twitter.com/UnderdogDevs
| jariel wrote:
| This seems like a neat idea, but wouldn't it be more pragmatic to
| teach them skills they can use more universally to get jobs for
| which maybe there's much more cultural inclination?
|
| Like carpentry, electrician, construction, plumbing?
|
| Maybe it's prejudiced, but all the people I know that 'got in
| trouble' eventually made their way to construction crews. It
| worked well.
|
| White Collar jobs come along with a ton of other social baggage
| and expectations (and prejudices) whereas highly skilled labour
| tends not to.
|
| And there are construction jobs literally everywhere.
|
| Finally, they can pay very well. Everyone is in need of a good
| carpenter.
| MikeDelta wrote:
| You are right. I don't want to sound bitter but I guess this is
| easier to teach by trainers who are not very skilled or
| experienced; following a bootcamp might be enough to write a
| programming texbook for beginners and the inexperienced not
| able to tell the difference, whereas making a cabinet by an
| inexperienced trainer will immediately be obvious. In addition,
| I can imagine there is more funding available for this and
| therefore easier to milk.
| gowld wrote:
| Not everyone has the ability to do a physically laborious job.
| JoeyBananas wrote:
| > The Last Mile's program is defying the country's 83 percent
| recidivism rate. In its 10 years existence, there has been zero
| recidivism amongst it's nearly 100 graduates, graduates that
| include Jason Jones.
|
| Those numbers tell you everything you need to know. They're not
| "solving mass incarceration" any time soon.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| Quite possibly they are educating people out of the 17% that
| would not be re-offenders.
|
| However, is is bloody obvious that if a person cant
| survive/earn money legally, they will do so illegally - so the
| system of 'justice' is just an offence to the senses cause it
| causes more crime.
| haram_masala wrote:
| To quote Thomas Frank, we have created a system that offers
| most people two choices: "toil without hope, or go to jail."
| EForEndeavour wrote:
| It's especially strange to me to see such future-blind thinking
| in the message board of the world's most famous startup
| accelerator.
|
| The Last Mile's website (https://thelastmile.org/about/) lists
| not 100 graduates, but 240 "returned citizens" who have
| successfully rejoined society, still with a 0% recidivism rate.
| This article said they only have 100 or so graduates, and the
| article was published in January of _last year_.
|
| Assuming the article's graduates are the same thing as the
| website's returned citizens, that means that The Last Mile has
| managed to produce about 1.4 times more graduates in the past
| year _than in the entire previous 10 years combined_.
|
| Healthy skepticism is healthy, but to dismiss this program's
| meteoric rise, huge potential, and noble cause without even a
| cursory attempt to understand them is being intentionally
| obtuse.
| Layke1123 wrote:
| I suspect it's likely to promote a certain viewpoint. Hacker
| News has a vested interest in not questioning a system that
| it benefits from.
|
| For instance, anyone who might be critical of a US historical
| policy typically has "no business" here because politics
| cause ideological flame wars, or some other half baked
| reasoning.
|
| While it is very encouraging at fostering dialogue on tech,
| once the dialogue goes against Hacker News's ultimate
| purpose, to make money, that's where you start to see weird
| accounts and strangely offensive comments questioning the act
| of questioning.
| anon_tor_12345 wrote:
| hn with the dismissive, lowbrow, comments.
|
| you realize that because they're in prison there's this other
| thing that prevents them from graduating to a job... namely
| their prison terms. just so we're clear: that there have only
| been 100 grads that successfully didn't return to prison
| doesn't tell you anything about how many finished the program
| and haven't been released yet.
|
| moreover, a small program with limited funding running in a few
| prisons not solving mass incarceration isn't anymore surprising
| than a thumb in a dyke not preventing a flood.
|
| instead you should be saying/asking/imagining: what would the
| completion and recidivism rate be if this program ran in all
| prisons. or even better: what would the incarceration rate be
| if this kind of vocational training were available for free in
| all poor neighborhoods.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| _> the country's 83 percent recidivism rate_
|
| Holy shizz, that's a lot. It's as if US laws and prisons aren't
| there to rehabilitate an individual but to turn him against
| society for good, making him a returning "customer" so that
| certain interest groups can keep profiting. But that's just
| probably my imagination running wild.
| hn8788 wrote:
| One theory I've heard is that for some particularly bad
| areas, Baltimore for example, the purpose is to keep people
| off the street for as long as possible to give young people a
| chance to grow up without seeing crime as a viable career
| choice. The idea being that some neigbhorhoods are too far
| gone, and rehabilitation won't work when people will be
| released from prison back into crime infested neighborhoods.
| Whether it's effective or not, I don't know.
| [deleted]
| BeetleB wrote:
| Monday's segment of Marketplace is worth listening to.
|
| The gist of it was that in many (all?) places in the US, a
| landlord can be sued if they rent to someone who has a
| criminal record who then went on commit another crime. As a
| result, few landlords will rent to them. I hang out on real
| estate forums and have never met anyone who would rent to
| someone with a criminal record.
|
| Getting a job is a whole other problem.
|
| That's just one example of the challenges they face.
|
| https://www.marketplace.org/2021/02/01/the-afterlife-of-
| mass...
|
| I can't find it right now, but there's also a TED talk by a
| former state official (state senator?) who committed a crime
| and spent a very brief time in prison. It was eye opening to
| him how he was denied pretty much everything once he got out,
| and only through his connections was he able to get
| employment.
|
| Couple that with the fact that the US is the country that
| imprisons the highest proportion of its own citizens, and
| it's terrifying.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| That's pretty bonkers since in most European countries,
| your crime record is only relevant for certain jobs where
| money or sensitive data is at stake and nothing else.
|
| How does society expect ex-cons to become functioning
| members again if they're denied housing and employment?
| [deleted]
| Guest42 wrote:
| Entry level tech jobs are remarkably scarce and difficult to
| obtain/maintain. Even with a masters and experience it takes 100+
| applications. Most companies don't hire programmers and the ones
| that do often contract it out overseas.
|
| I know there are caveats and counter-anecdotes but this has been
| my set of observations over the last 10 years.
| shiftpgdn wrote:
| It is beyond frustrating to me to see how many jobs get filled
| with fraudulent H1B employees when there is no shortage of
| entry level coders available domestically.
| ppeetteerr wrote:
| They don't have to be fraudulent. It's easier to fill with an
| H1B candidate with experience than with a fresh engineer with
| a recent degree.
| shiftpgdn wrote:
| A lot (and I mean 90%+) of H1Bs are outright lying about
| their experience in the tech field. At least from my short
| time doing hiring for a position in Texas. I eventually
| went to our management and got them to stop listening to
| recruiting body shops and hire someone local.
| kyawzazaw wrote:
| > A lot (and I mean 90%+) of H1Bs
|
| How can you say that with such confidence?
|
| Maybe the issue is your workplace is using staffing
| agency, primarily?
| emidln wrote:
| In my experience hiring for jr webdev and full stack roles,
| about 1 in 5 people could pass fizzbuzz (even when the
| mathematical algorithm was explained in writing). About 1 in
| 100 completed the basic web app demo (untimed, take home,
| expected to take between 30 minutes and 2 hours, in any
| language, with a test suite included as a shell script). I
| often hired the first person even remotely qualified with the
| intent on teaching the gap because hiring took so long. This
| was in Chicago from about 2011 to 2018.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| Well how much were you all paying?
| dudul wrote:
| What does it have to do with the quality of the candidates?
| Salaries are often not discussed before the end of the
| process, especially for junior roles where applicants can
| rarely force the hiring manager/recruiter to disclose a
| budget.
| swebs wrote:
| They could just check Glassdoor.
| WalterBright wrote:
| > Entry level tech jobs are remarkably scarce and difficult to
| obtain/maintain.
|
| Entry level jobs are available everywhere - contributing to
| open source programs. Of course, nobody is going to immediately
| write you a check for that. But once you build a track record
| of competent contributions, people will be willing to pay you
| for more, and may even hire you.
|
| I'm proud that many contributors to the D language have
| leveraged that into very well paying jobs.
| kyawzazaw wrote:
| and how many is that?
|
| > But once you build a track record of competent
| contributions
|
| how hard is this? especially for the population who is in
| need of actual employment.
|
| I am a cs student and has worked professionally but even then
| making any meaningful contribution to any decent language is
| beyond what I can afford (time/energy/financial-wise).
|
| More often than not, there is a lack of documentation (yes, I
| know this can be something I can contribute), very strict
| requirements for any pull requests, etc.
| MikeDelta wrote:
| There is a big difference between knowing coding syntax (for
| beginners that is typically what they call coding) and being
| able to write applications. A lot of false hope is raised like
| this. And even worse: there are programmes where they ask for
| money to teach people how to code and give them the false
| impression of getting a job easily.
| xiphias2 wrote:
| It's because the 10x engineer is real: many people learn coding
| just for earning money, not like 20 years ago when most people
| did it out of passion. This means that there are more people
| that can't provide enough business value to be justified in a
| tech company.
|
| At the same time they can use their coding skills to make non-
| tech office jobs more automated.
| [deleted]
| sokoloff wrote:
| When I look over the interview and coding exercise results from
| entry-level applicants, I can understand how some of the
| candidates will apply and interview a lot before landing a
| role. There's a pretty sharp clustering into "can very likely
| code" and "did not demonstrate they could productively code".
| whimsicalism wrote:
| For many entry level tech jobs today, I think you'll find the
| bar is considerably higher.
| sokoloff wrote:
| If the bar is considerably higher than "can very likely
| code", then I question whether those roles are actually
| entry-level.
|
| We hire dozens of entry level roles per year. That's our
| bar (of course, coupled with "is authorized to work where
| the role is").
| bluefirebrand wrote:
| > If the bar is considerably higher than "can very likely
| code", then I question whether those roles are actually
| entry-level
|
| I think discussions around "entry level" jobs are often
| muddied by the dual meanings of the term.
|
| Companies want to hire experienced people as "entry
| level" to their company. As in, the position we are
| hiring you for does not have any kind of seniority.
|
| Fresh Grads want to find an "entry level" position to the
| entire industry.
|
| This confusion is part of why you see "entry level" job
| postings asking for years of experience, essentially
| asking for an intermediate skill level, not a junior
| skill level.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| For the typical company in California, you can expect to
| be tested on algorithmic knowledge for an entry-level
| job.
| sokoloff wrote:
| Is that "typical" or "top 10 highest-paying" company?
| whimsicalism wrote:
| > Is that "typical" or "top 10 highest-paying" company?
|
| Many, many more than "top 10 highest-paying." But yes,
| generally for six figure entry level roles.
| [deleted]
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