[HN Gopher] Prison chess clubs helping rehabilitate inmates
___________________________________________________________________
Prison chess clubs helping rehabilitate inmates
Author : mellosouls
Score : 132 points
Date : 2023-06-15 11:17 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bbc.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bbc.com)
| iamthirsty wrote:
| Comments about 'Private prisons reaping incredible profits and
| determined to make people continue to re-offend to keep them
| occupied' should look at this[0], as the actual count of inmates
| in private prisons is rather low.
|
| [0]:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_St.
| ..
| IvyMike wrote:
| Here's a link with more recent numbers from 2021.
|
| https://www.sentencingproject.org/reports/private-prisons-in...
|
| Overall, it's about 8%, but if you look at per-state numbers,
| it is kind of a bimodal distribution. Looking at some of the
| more populous states, California has 0%,Florida has 15%,
| Tennessee has 35%. The trend in states with larger populations
| in private prisons is that it is also increasing, but there are
| exceptions (Texas) and you should look at the numbers yourself.
| emodendroket wrote:
| Private prisons are probably a stand-in not because they
| represent most prisoners in the US but because they represent
| the apotheosis of perverse incentives.
| Havoc wrote:
| Reminds me of the cats for prisoners thing.
|
| Strikes me as an exceptionally good use of taxpayer money.
| Prisons suck at rehabilitating people and thus just make things
| worse in the long run when you release the people. Anything you
| can do to blunt that negative effect is a win.
|
| edit: edited for a rough typo
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| what's the cats for prisoners thing?
| TheCleric wrote:
| I don't know the specific one they're referring to, but I'd
| imagine it would be similar to many other pets and prisoner
| programs [0]. The essence being that having an animal to take
| care of can be therapeutic and help teach valuable
| rehabilitation skills like responsibility.
|
| [0]: https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/80699/8-prison-
| animal-pr...
| emodendroket wrote:
| If you say prisons "suck at" rehabilitating people it suggests
| it's something they want to do but are not succeeding at.
| However, there are a lot of governors and prison officials who
| reject that notion as namby-pamby and see the institution of
| prisons as purely punitive or retributive with no real duty to
| rehabilitate offenders.
| [deleted]
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| My uncle has been in and out of prison for 30 years after his
| drunk dad sent him to jail as a 17 year old for writing a check
| in his dads name.
|
| The stupidest part is that the """"justice"""" system never
| trained him or let him learn to drive. So every time he gets out
| he has to go to impoverished city centers where he meets right
| back up with the groups that eventually get him back in prison.
|
| He could've made a fine career of being a truck driver if America
| wasn't so stupid.
|
| These types of articles are frustrating because it helps the
| public feel good about themselves when they have a decades long
| disaster rolling around with no change.
| brvsft wrote:
| The fact that your uncle never bothered trying to pass a
| driving test isn't the justice system's fault. He's not a
| victim or puppet without any agency in his life.
| e-clinton wrote:
| I'd argue that it is. The system is suppose to be helping
| rehabilitate inmates so that they fit better in society....
| The focus needs to be helping inmates see how they can
| otherwise create value.
| quacked wrote:
| Why do you think the system is supposed to rehabilitate? I
| would argue that the system is supposed to separate people
| who cannot be trusted in society from the rest of us. I
| think the major failure of the justice system (apart from
| corruption and dishonesty) is the failure to keep prisoners
| safe from one another. Rehabilitation should happen on your
| own recognizance, the system should exist to keep you
| exiled from people who didn't commit your crime.
|
| (I do believe that rehabilitation, or more accurately in
| the case of people who never were instilled with a moral
| compass, "habilitation", is often possible and always
| desirable, but I don't think the system itself can or
| should be entrusted with that responsibility. It should
| just make the conditions for habilitation possible, and
| then outside society can intervene as it will.)
| piva00 wrote:
| If you let outsiders of the system to go at will
| intervene you create a perverse incentive for those
| outsiders to game ways to keep these people in prison, if
| they are too good at rehabilitation they'll lose
| potential cheap labour. An actor outside of the system
| will have access to labour that is cheap and in
| precarious conditions, usually a pretty good start for
| exploitation, without having any responsibility
| whatsoever for their rehabilitation.
|
| If you decide that a condition for access from outsiders
| is to rehabilitate people (with whatever metrics you can
| come up) then you have just privatised the job of
| rehabilitation... For what gain? Society as a whole would
| benefit if prisoners are rehabilitated and find that
| criminality is not worth it, isn't the job of the State
| the betterment of society? Why should we create
| convoluted ways to privatise that?
| quacked wrote:
| > Isn't the job of the State the betterment of society?
|
| We may have fundamentally opposing ideological views
| here, but I see what you're asking. I would actually say
| that the job of Society is the betterment of the state.
| Ultimately it is people in society that create and man
| their bureaucracies; the government is infused with the
| skills and morals of the people that form it, and will
| not exceed their abilities.
|
| I don't think that you could ever form a wing of a
| government that was capable of rehabilitating people
| without that wing being fully made up of very intelligent
| people with good intentions; and if you were able to
| assemble that group of people, they'd do a better job as
| a private endeavor (maybe not for profit, perhaps as a
| non-profit that only pays their salaries, etc.) I _do_
| think you could make a form of a government that was
| capable of keeping prisons far safer than they are now,
| as that 's a much more discrete and amoral task that
| ensuring that convicted citizens (often low-IQ, often
| sociopathic, often abused, often with PTSD) are
| rehabilitated.
| alaspoorrodrick wrote:
| No man is an island. If you separate someone from their
| community, their relationships, and the very things that
| cause us to change (people) -- you create monsters.
| Disenfranchised (more than already), rootless, without a
| reason or purpose to change. The only recognizance most
| prisoners will get is further down the "no one can be
| trusted or relied upon; I am the only person that must be
| taken care of" rabbit hole. You end up with either the
| fully antisocial, the terribly maladapted who can no
| longer build relations and integrate with others, or
| simply the dissociated.
|
| Atleast in more sane countries, the corrections officers
| and prisons act as a form of community. A safe reprieve
| from the brutality of life, for one to be able to emulate
| a "normal" life, and "normal" interactions, and "normal"
| behavior. The brutality and isolation of an American
| prison only emulates a lawless society. The moral compass
| imparted within is simply might makes right. It takes
| Olympian acts of mental gymnastics to believe one is
| wholly responsible for one's own moral compass -- or that
| anyone but the most deluded can reject the reality they
| find themselves in, cast off all practical notions of
| operating oneself, and commit to abstract ideals. The
| only people who can do that are people who are so
| detached from any feedback loop on their survival, that
| it doesn't matter what they believe -- they have enough
| money and support that any insanity will never jeopardize
| them.
|
| Crimes and morals are relative to the environments people
| find themselves in. Stuffing the spiritually ill into a
| crude box of suffering is on par with lobotomizing the
| "fussy and ill-tempered" housewives of the last century.
| quacked wrote:
| > If you separate someone from their community, their
| relationships, and the very things that cause us to
| change (people) -- you create monsters.
|
| You and I agree that the current method of imprisoning
| criminals teaches them to be worse, and _must_ change.
| However, I think you are either ignoring or not believing
| the fact that many people "in their community" are
| _already_ monsters. (A "monster" in this case is someone
| who knowingly and purposefully spreads suffering, either
| for their own benefit or for fun.)
|
| The behavioral patterns and beliefs that cause crimes
| that we jail for--duelling, honor killing, robbery,
| sexual aggression, petty theft, intimidation, etc.--are
| first learned from the families, friends, and neighbors
| that one grows up around. Removing the children of
| mafiosos from their environment isn't going to contribute
| to their learning of the culture of the Mafia any more
| than removing the children of rich WASPs would contribute
| to their learning of the stereotypically entitled
| behaviors and views on the lower classes. (It is a
| popular belief among progressives that it's the System in
| the first place that teaches them these behaviors, but
| this is a view that robs people of their agency. It
| implies that violence would be least in a more anarchist-
| adjacent society, when in fact the historical view shows
| that inter-group violence is staggeringly high in places
| with less strong governments.)
|
| Apart from this, I don't think we disagree on the problem
| with modern prisons. My primary view of prison reform is
| that prison ought to be _safe_. We should, as a civilized
| society, guarantee people we imprison that when they are
| forcibly remanded under the care of the Department of
| Justice, they are no longer in danger from their fellow
| citizens, and answer only to their captors.
| alaspoorrodrick wrote:
| I think we can reduce our differences as to those of
| values. My definition of "monster" is not someone who
| "knowingly and purposefully spreads suffering, either for
| their own benefit for for fun." That is just a selfish
| person with no care for how their malicious acts affect
| others.
|
| "Monsters," in my view, are those that are not and cannot
| ever be part of any cohesive human unit -- rather than
| those who cannot conform to a "global" moral or value
| system. The WASPs, mafiosos, inbred and insane
| aristocrats, mob-men, etc. are not what I consider
| monsters. They live and operate within a community. They
| almost always spread suffering, pain, violence, and other
| acts of villainy -- but that is an inescapable part of
| humanity. Locking them up away from the rest will not
| solve any long-term problems, aside from the career
| outlooks of politicians, district attorneys, and their
| ilk.
|
| American Indians and other "primitive" tribes of people
| are another example (related to groups of people without
| strong government). All the war, bloodshed, acts of
| heinous despicably they commit against one another, is
| not something that can be whisked away by more
| subjugation. Brutality and suffering is a part of us. To
| think ourselves as civilized because we repress those
| urges into complete subjugation is foolhardy. Without
| active sublimation of these parts into socially-affirming
| activities, they will spill-over into other parts. We
| will not become "monsters," but we will do monstrous
| deeds unknowingly, within the comfort of our delusion of
| domestication.
|
| Perhaps I lack the ability to "narrow in" on a certain
| issue. I miss the "trees for the forest," which makes it
| impossible for me to see a way to untangle this "ball of
| yarn" without methodically understanding the tangle of
| all the collective "strings". And for that, I do think
| your views are much more practical and applicable in the
| present.
| quacked wrote:
| That is a very insightful comment, thank you for making
| it. I think I understand your original point a little
| better than I did.
|
| > To think ourselves as civilized because we repress
| those urges into complete subjugation is foolhardy.
|
| Given your belief about the existence of inherent
| brutality in humanity (which I agree with) is a
| "civilized person" actually an achievable goal? I have
| gone this far believing that the definition of a
| "civilized" person is some with normal, inherent
| uncivilized urges that effectively controls
| ("subjugates") those urges enough to create civilization.
| (Peace and prosperity via collaboration and material
| surplus.)
|
| Also, if exile to prison is not actually solving any
| long-term problems, what do you think is a possibile
| course of action that does address long-term problems?
| prottog wrote:
| > Rehabilitation should happen on your own recognizance
|
| I agree. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't
| make it drink. There is still legitimate debate on how
| much role society has to play in making sure it's as nice
| as possible for the horse to get to water.
|
| Obviously in GP's uncle's case an injustice was done to
| him (by his father, it sounds like), but it is still up
| to him as an adult to become a productive member of
| society. I like the way some put it, when talking about
| people from troubled backgrounds (whether from abusive
| parents, mental issues, what have you): it wasn't your
| fault, but it's still your responsibility to deal with
| it, once you are an adult.
| Timon3 wrote:
| But what does telling them it is their responsibility get
| us? A warm, fuzzy feeling that we are better than those
| irresponsible people is the best I can come up with.
| Aside from that we shouldn't try to assign responsibility
| or blame, but instead look at what results our system
| has. If there are people who could be productive members
| of society, but who have fallen so far behind they can't
| take care of "their responsibilities", how does it help
| us if we don't help them?
| prottog wrote:
| > how does it help us if we don't help them?
|
| Every policy choice has an opportunity cost and sets up
| an incentive. If we don't do something, that resource
| gets used elsewhere; if we make the imprisoned experience
| very nice and comfortable, it takes away a disincentive
| for committing crime. So you can never look at anything
| in a vacuum.
|
| I'm sure you've had an experience where you had a friend
| or relative in hard circumstances who you kept on trying
| to help, but they seemingly fell on their same bad habits
| over and over again, leading you to be exhausted and
| unable to manage your own life.
| Timon3 wrote:
| > Every policy choice has an opportunity cost and sets up
| an incentive. If we don't do something, that resource
| gets used elsewhere; if we make the imprisoned experience
| very nice and comfortable, it takes away a disincentive
| for committing crime.
|
| And yet the scandinavian justice system is much nicer to
| their prisoners compared to the american one, yet they
| have much lower rates of re-offenders. Why does this
| seemingly work for them? Why don't they have to treat
| their prisoners as bad as the US does to get a better
| outcome?
|
| > So you can never look at anything in a vacuum.
|
| But that's what you're doing. You're looking at something
| like "the prison experience is bad", and you decide that
| if it's improved, you take away disincentives for
| committing crime. But you don't consider the positive
| effect on rehabilitation and everything else. That's why
| I said: why don't we look at the effect of policies? You
| are randomly choosing aspects to focus on, because they
| support your thesis. I'm saying: let's throw away our
| theses and just accept what the data tells us.
|
| > I'm sure you've had an experience where you had a
| friend or relative in hard circumstances who you kept on
| trying to help, but they seemingly fell on their same bad
| habits over and over again, leading you to be exhausted
| and unable to manage your own life.
|
| Maybe the right thing to do isn't to ignore them, but to
| get them help that actually helps them? In your described
| situation I am not the right person to try and help them,
| but I can help them get there with much lower personal
| efforts.
| prottog wrote:
| > the scandinavian justice system
|
| > Why does this seemingly work for them?
|
| Scandinavian countries are for the most part ethnically
| homogeneous with a monarchy and a state religion, all
| things that improve social cohesion. (The one
| Scandinavian country that became markedly less ethnically
| homogeneous recently is struggling with an unprecedented
| rise in violent crime.) America is just about the polar
| opposite of that, and recently so much more so -- now
| it's considered racist to ask an immigrant to assimilate
| themselves to the mainstream culture, for example.
|
| And there are legal systems that go the other way to
| achieve the same result of low rates of crime and
| reoffense; countries like Saudi Arabia or the UAE treat
| criminals extremely harshly and have some of the lowest
| crime rates in the world. Singapore puts drug traffickers
| to death and have opiate abuse rates of 30 per 100k vs.
| 600 in the US.
|
| America, for better or for worse, is a vast land with a
| diverse population and constitutionally guaranteed
| personal liberties; that is to say, it's set up in such a
| way that deterrence is a big part of the justice system.
| In less diverse countries with more social cohesion, a
| big chunk of that deterrence comes from social pressure
| of people around you, who look like you and with whom you
| share a common cultural heritage. In America, where the
| people around you have little say in your behavior (and
| increasingly less so), it's a part of the justice
| system's job to be menacing.
|
| > let's throw away our theses and just accept what the
| data tells us
|
| What the data tells about Scandinavia is not likely to
| work in America for the reasons above. And let me ask you
| a question: a third of all shoplifting arrests in NYC, a
| city of 8.5 million people, were from just 327 people,
| who were collectively arrested over 6000 times[0]. How
| will you rehabilitate those 327 people, given that you
| don't have unlimited resources and you have a duty to
| keep them from harming other innocent, law-abiding
| people? Saudi Arabia would probably cut their hands off
| and be done with it. Norway might commit them to a
| lengthy term at a psychiatric facility on the taxpayer's
| dime. Neither is an option in the US.
|
| [0]:
| https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/15/nyregion/shoplifting-
| arre...
| Timon3 wrote:
| Do you have any proof that the "ethnic homogeneity" is
| the cause of the difference? It's paraded around for any
| issue where America is worse off than other countries,
| but it's always just put out as a statement of fact. Do
| you have any shred of evidence? Any studies?
|
| If you don't, please take a second to reflect why you're
| pointing at this specific difference.
| prottog wrote:
| If you're looking for "proof" that any one thing is the
| "cause" of a complex social issue, I'm afraid you're
| going to be disappointed. There isn't a great deal of
| academic literature on the topic, but perhaps two key
| illustrations:
|
| 1. The 1954 "Toward an Understanding of Juvenile
| Delinquency" by Lander, which showed that the rate of
| "delinquency" rose for both whites and blacks as the
| ratio between the two reached 50%, and proportionally
| fell in areas where either whites or blacks held the
| majority.
|
| 2. The 1982 "Population Heterogeneity and the
| Sociogenesis of Homicide" by Hansmann and Quigley, which
| recognizes that though the issue is complex, their
| findings support the the idea that population
| heterogeneity is a "significant causal factor in
| homicide".
|
| And of course, unacademically off the top of your head,
| it's likely that the lowest-crime places you can think of
| are generally ethnically homogeneous.
|
| > If you don't, please take a second to reflect why
| you're pointing at this specific difference.
|
| Hey, I'm not the one who held up Scandinavia (>90% white)
| as a model. I myself am neither white nor black and
| immigrated to the US, where I would much rather prefer to
| live, warts and all, than in Scandinavia.
| Timon3 wrote:
| I'm sure you're aware that research methods in general,
| but especially in sociology, have improved over the last
| decades. Do you have any source that is not literally 40
| years old? Anything more current?
|
| > Hey, I'm not the one who held up Scandinavia (>90%
| white) as a model.
|
| There you go again...
| pixel3234 wrote:
| There is a solid argument that everyone should read and
| write. Common literacy is a cornerstone of modern society and
| is widely enforced. And there is argument if driving is a
| basic skill, or a privilege...
| tstrimple wrote:
| It's been shown in multiple studies that improving reading
| and writing skills reduces recidivism. Unfortunately these
| arguments fall flat to the ears of folk who don't see
| recidivism as a problem to be solved. Just put them back in
| prison for longer! They have a punishment based mindset and
| data on how to reduce overall crime rates is just not
| something they engage with. To them crime is an individual
| failing society and not society failing the individual.
| After all they managed not to become criminals therefore
| everyone in society can.
| Jiro wrote:
| >after his drunk dad sent him to jail as a 17 year old for
| writing a check in his dads name.
|
| This lacks the details for me to know whether I should be
| sympathetic or not. Are you saying that he forged the check for
| some reason related to his dad being drunk, like his dad not
| buying any food, or that his dad agreed to let him write the
| check and then complained to the police anyway because he was
| drunk?
| OfSanguineFire wrote:
| It is difficult to imagine someone not being sympathetic to a
| 17 year old whose life ended up totally broken, even if he
| did it out of sheer malice. Stephen Fry famously stole a
| credit card at nearly same age and was jailed for it, would
| you hold that against him today?
| mtlmtlmtlmtl wrote:
| Does whether you're sympathetic to their situation at 17
| affect how well they should be rehabilitated, in your view,
| or are you just curious? Genuine question.
| searealist wrote:
| A minor doesn't go to prison for writing a single check in his
| father's name.
| ravenstine wrote:
| The whole idea of putting a man in a box with other criminals
| so he can "think about what he did" seems like a complete
| failure, besides the fact that he's kept away from the public
| so he can't commit more crimes.
|
| It's one thing when someone has life in prison without the
| possibility of parole, but if a man is eventually going to be
| let out, what good does it really do to prevent him from being
| able to function on the outside? Basically nothing, as far as I
| can tell. He is destined to be destitute and possibly go back
| to a life of criminality.
|
| People don't want money and resources to go towards training
| "violent murderers who didn't do anything to deserve what
| they're getting", but then what else do you expect other than
| that you're deferring the criminality to a later date? The odds
| are not in your favor that the prisoner be reformed by the time
| he gets out. Reforming criminals, and I mean actual reformation
| and not the horseshit we consider reformation today, is a cost
| society should bear for its own good so that prison actually
| means something. Why let prisoners out when they are likely
| destined to go right back to prison?
| beardog wrote:
| >besides the fact that he's kept away from the public so he
| can't commit more crimes.
|
| Even this part is a failure. Prisoners can and do commit
| crimes that victimize other prisoners, guards, and sometimes
| the outside public.
| treeman79 wrote:
| At some point if people keep attacking harming, and or
| murdering others. They just need to be put some place they
| won't harm others.
|
| Too many people rob / mug others and get arrested dozens of
| times only to be back on the street quickly. A single person
| can traumatize hundreds.
| [deleted]
| tiedieconderoga wrote:
| >what good does it really do to prevent him from being able
| to function on the outside?
|
| From whose perspective?
|
| Part of the problem is that some powerful groups are
| incentived to keep people coming back to prison. Private
| prisons reap profits, politicians get an easy way to drive
| fear in their constituents, telcos can charge an arm and a
| leg for phone calls, commissaries clean up by charging
| exorbitant prices for toothpaste and ramen, etc.
|
| Until we start connecting positive outcomes for those groups
| to positive outcomes for the prisoners, it'll always be an
| uphill battle.
|
| As Upton Sinclair used to say, "It is difficult to get a man
| to understand something, when his salary depends on his not
| understanding it."
| masklinn wrote:
| Keeping people in prison forever is also a very "law and
| order" position which plays well with certain groups, and
| is very easy to sell: you don't need any sort of nuance,
| you don't face empathetic conflicts, etc...
| iamthirsty wrote:
| Private prisons comprising a much smaller percentage of
| inmates than people realize.[0]
|
| [0]:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_Unit
| ed_St...
| ROTMetro wrote:
| Now do private companies providing the phone call
| service. Now do commissary. Now the computers where you
| pay per minute to write and read emails. Now do UNICOR
| (like forced labor for McDonalds Corporation who has
| UNICOR do the CAD work for their franchise store remodels
| all the way to CAD work being done on the new World Trade
| Center).
| avgcorrection wrote:
| Turns out that _every problem can be solved with one more
| level of indirection_ also works for privatization.
| iamthirsty wrote:
| I've done that research, and companies like JPay have
| incredible monopolies, and make a good amount of money.
|
| But that isn't what people refer to, and not the point I
| made. The common misconception is that private prisons
| themselves are the issues. Sure, the ancillaries are
| terrible, but relatively small by comparison. Sure, the
| government isn't providing those services, so private
| companies stepped in and monopolized. Regardless, they
| are providing a service for money. Not as shocking and
| horrible as it's made out to be.
| beambot wrote:
| The problem runs _deep_. Prison "slavery" is codified in the
| US Constitution's 13th Amendment:
|
| > _Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a
| punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly
| convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place
| subject to their jurisdiction._
|
| Is it any wonder that "enterprising" organizations take
| advantage...?
| WindyLakeReturn wrote:
| While I think there is a definite issue with prisons being
| used as a source of labor, I also don't see how you can
| have prison without it being slavery. At the very core,
| putting someone in a limited area they do not want to be
| in, forcing them to stay there under threat of violence,
| and forcing them to behave seems to be a form of slavery.
|
| Even if we were to consider a nice prison focused around
| rehabilitation and not exploitation, there are still things
| the prisoner is forced to do. They are forced not to leave.
| They are forced to follow certain rules. They are forced to
| move between locations at certain times of the day. They
| may be forced to attend classes or do specific types of
| labor like cleaning their rooms or common areas. Unlike a
| job where you might be 'forced' to clean, but you can
| always quit, quitting is rarely a choice for the prisoner
| and will result in worse punishment. Even if the prison
| does not directly profit off the labor of the prisoner,
| this level of control seems to be a form of slavery. Rarely
| do I see slavery defined as requiring profit to be made off
| the slave, though slavery rarely happens where it isn't
| found to be profitable by the person doing the enslaving
| (based on the enslaver's own view of what counts as
| profit).
|
| If we were to fully ban slavery even for prisons, then for
| even nice prisons to continue to exist we would have to
| define some other non-slavery action which would include
| having control of where a person lives, how they live, when
| they sleep, and all the other powers of a prison. In such a
| case, it would then be possible for a state to allow this
| non-slavery even for people not convicted of a crime,
| because it isn't slavery and thus isn't a violation of the
| 13th amendment. Generally things like kidnapping laws as
| they currently exist would prevent any private entity from
| doing this, but exceptions might be carved out. On
| realistic example would be teen rehabilitation camps which
| already can border on the legal limits of kidnapping, false
| imprisonment, and slavery. Some stories from these places
| already sound like they might be crossing the line, though
| that might only be allowed as long as they are dealing with
| minors with parental approval. I could reasonably see a
| state extending such treatment until the teen is 21 or
| such.
| ROTMetro wrote:
| Oh defining a framework that defines incarceration is
| hard so we should just have slavery. Got it.
|
| Random anecdote. Slavery means NO days off. If you are
| sick, you have to get up at 5:30am and go wait in line
| outside in the freezing snow for sick call (you also have
| to do this for 'pill line' if you have any meds, though
| you aren't charged the $5 a pop for that). Sick call
| costs $5 a visit. You make $5 a month. Then the doctor
| says 'drink water and take an aspirin' and clears you to
| go to work. Aspirin is only available from the commissary
| in large overprices bottles about to expire. You are
| REQUIRED to throw the bottle away when it is expired or
| you will get a shot for 'contraband'. You can not share
| aspirin with others. Hopefully you planned ahead and
| saved your $5 for 2 months to afford a bottle of aspirin
| in case you got sick, and it hasn't expired before you
| get sick. When you get to work, sick, no exception is
| made for your physical condition. If you work HVAC you're
| still climbing ladders in the snow to the roof.
|
| Slavery means I was forced to shovel the compound with a
| shovel with a broken handle so exposed fiberglass that
| cut me up. I was issued a 'navy uniform' which is what we
| wear in the feds. So short sleeve shirt, thin khaki
| slacks, thin socks. And you get a light non-waterproof
| jacket. You want long underwear? Commissary purchase (4X
| monthly pay, $20 pants OR $20 shirt). Gloves? Commissary
| purchase (2 months pay $10). Hat? commissary purchase (1
| months pay $5). So I shoveled snow for hours, soaked to
| the bone, in whiteout conditions, no hat, no gloves, with
| my hands bleeding. That is slavery. And I had it good. I
| was able to get the shovel fixed through connections, boy
| was the cop that made me do that pissed when next time I
| pulled the shovel out of the locked tool closet and
| somehow it was fixed even though he kept 'forgetting' to
| put in a work order.
| ROTMetro wrote:
| UNICOR at my spot did CAD work for McDonald's remodels
| (along with a textile sweetshop). With COVID they made
| UNICOR only dorms (something they are not allowed to do)
| with of course special privileges (which they are not
| allowed to do, they can't 'treat you better if you take
| this job that makes us money'). Also, the UNICOR cops got
| bonuses based on the local UNICORs performance. But yeah,
| that whole things doesn't get abused, people don't get
| forced into it. Why would a cop do that, just because his
| bonus depends on you 'volunteering' to work overtime... or
| in dangerous situations. His compassion DEFINATELY
| overrides greed for that sweet sweet bonus money. And if
| you quit you are still in his dorm until transferred, and
| of course he doesn't punish you at all for putting his
| bonus at risk.
| somenameforme wrote:
| When you walk into some store, why don't you just take
| whatever you want and walk out? Perhaps you have some
| virtuous reasons: maybe find stealing ethically wrong, or
| maybe from a philosophical point of view since if everybody
| stole at their discretion that society would collapse, or
| maybe you just don't want to have a reputation as a thief.
| But what if somebody didn't care about anything at all like
| that? And try as hard as you might, you simply couldn't
| convince him of your train of thought. What then?
|
| All that's really left is deterrence. In the past (and in the
| present in many places) if you steal then the first time
| something like a finger gets cut off, and the next time the
| hand comes off, and the third time - well don't steal three
| times. But of course that's barbaric, so we need to do things
| that aren't barbaric, but what? And so enters the idea of
| prison. Rehabilitation is of course ideal, but in reality
| some people simply can't be rehabilitated. So what do you do
| then?
|
| Separation of those who can and cannot be rehabilitated would
| ostensibly be ideal, but it's interesting to consider that in
| doing this you'd effectively be going full circle and
| recreating the asylum type systems of times long since past.
| It's unclear that this would be desirable even in the best of
| times, and we're certainly not in the best of times.
| tech_ken wrote:
| I don't think people think through the "deterrence" angle
| very well though. In order to make deterrence effective you
| need to have people who really stand to lose something, but
| like I was just listening to C.R.E.A.M last night (funny
| enough while playing chess) and Method Man raises an
| interesting point: "life in the world no different from a
| cell". For someone facing seriously abject poverty, the
| potential rewards of crime may outweigh the costs. You can
| make prison progressively more horrible, but you can also
| make life outside of prison progressively better with IMO a
| similar effect. In the US we rarely discuss the anti-crime
| effects of social welfare policies, but they're quite real.
| In a world without the kind of serious poverty we accept
| all over the US even 5 year prison sentence is a massive
| loss, because life outside is so much better. In a world
| where people are living in $10 a day then maybe 5 years in
| prison isn't such a huge price if the upside risk appears
| big enoug
| prakhar897 wrote:
| That's why it's called the "Justice" System and not
| "Rehabilitation" System. Your uncle committed fraud, the public
| does not care about the surrounding circumstances.
|
| The trust that VICTIM will get justice keeps the society
| intact. Nobody cares what happens to the bad guy.
|
| If someone took out all your money through fraud and gambled it
| away, what would you choose:
|
| A) Justice: Put them in Jail for long time.
|
| B) Rehabilitation: Put them in medical care for an year till
| their gambling addiction is cured. Then they are free to
| integrate back into society.
|
| In both cases, you get no money back. What would you prefer?
| MiddleEndian wrote:
| Presumably you could have some combo of A and B.
| Mordisquitos wrote:
| I would argue that you are placing misnamed choices. Both are
| different _flavours_ of Justice:
|
| A) _Retributive_ Justice: Put them in Jail for long time.
|
| B) _Rehabilitative_ Justice: Put them in medical care for an
| year till their gambling addiction is cured. Then they are
| free to integrate back into society.
|
| All else being equal, I would absolutely prefer B over A.
| However, there is also a third option C, which can be
| combined with either A or B:
|
| C) _Restorative_ Justice: Require them to do a certain type
| and amount of work for you or for the state to make up for an
| agreed amount of your lost money and moral damages.
|
| Give me a mix of B and C any day, and throw A down the drain
| (in the sense of prison purely as punishment, I have nothing
| against using prison to protect society from certain
| criminals).
| mtlmtlmtlmtl wrote:
| I know you think this is some hard dilemma that will force
| people to admit "yes of course I want them punished". But it
| really isn't. At the end of the day, putting the guy in jail
| without rehabilitation doesn't help me at all, except quench
| the thirst for revenge, which is always there of course, but
| I know giving in to it is like chasing a fix; it'll make me
| feel better in the short term and like a vindictive asshole
| in the long term.
|
| What would make me feel better in the long term is knowing
| that at least _something_ good came out of my losing all my
| money. In case B as opposed to nothing at all in case A.
| beecafe wrote:
| Obviously B?
| conradev wrote:
| My uncle is also in prison and I also don't like these types of
| articles. I much prefer writing from prisoners themselves:
|
| https://prisonjournalismproject.org/category/perspective/
| doh wrote:
| I am involved with a non-profit that provides ISA (income share
| agreements) to convicts to get licensed truckers [0]. The
| founder started it due to similar experiences as you described
| and changed the lives of many people already. Wish this was
| institutionalized rather than being done as singular
| organization, but it's a start.
|
| [0] https://freeworld.org
| steve76 wrote:
| [dead]
| 11235813213455 wrote:
| Your uncle should definitely not be in prison, but he should
| get his car confiscated and get a bike, legs-powered
| some_random wrote:
| He doesn't have a car, that's part of the problem
| tokai wrote:
| Doesn't it only take a couple of weeks to get a drivers license
| in the US?
| zikduruqe wrote:
| No. You walk in and take a written test. If you pass, then
| you have to take a driving test. Assuming that you have a
| car. Or a friend with a car. Or money to rent a car.
|
| Assuming that you can find a car to drive, you will take a
| lap around the block to demonstrate that you can steer, stop
| and maybe parallel park.
|
| The barrier to entry is pretty low.
| ROTMetro wrote:
| You are required to take and pass paid courses to get a
| license in most states these days. It was a huge barrier to
| a lot of the guys in the halfway house. Just coordinating
| getting to these classes via the bus was a pain. Also, if
| you return 15 minutes late to the halfway house the US
| Marshals come pick you up and back to jail you go, so
| missing a bus has pretty steep consequences that make
| people avoid any additional bus trips such as getting to
| drivers training class (you are required to work so you
| have to risk the bus at least twice a day no matter what).
| mahathu wrote:
| In Germany, you take individual driving lessons and group
| classes on traffic rules including a mandatory first aid
| class.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| This is very common in the US, even though it is not
| typically mandated. Technically you can just go take the
| test if you're up to it, and some people do exactly that
| with no more training than they got from mom & dad. But a
| lot of kids take the classroom route. Not every parent
| wants to teach.
| 11235813213455 wrote:
| in Holland, you get a bicycle and never regret it
| pdntspa wrote:
| Holland is also pretty damn flat
| mahathu wrote:
| That's even more based and walkabilitypilled.
| hindsightbias wrote:
| Of the 50 states, we actually have one smaller than
| Holland.
| BariumBlue wrote:
| Are you implying that the US is cursed, forever
| pathologically unable to have bikeable places, because
| it's too large?
|
| If only the US was smaller...
| r2_pilot wrote:
| Good luck renting a car without a driver's license.
| mbg721 wrote:
| Driving schools will give in-car lessons to adults, and
| let you use their car for the test, for a fee; that's the
| form of "renting a car" that's useful for this case. In
| my state the requirements are looser for adults than for
| teenagers, under the assumption that adults are generally
| more responsible or have driven before.
| antisthenes wrote:
| No. And definitely not for a CDL.
| tokai wrote:
| Just looked it up. The CDL is on average acquired over
| seven weeks. Not quite a couple of weeks, but not a long
| time either.
| antisthenes wrote:
| It costs several thousand dollars in fees and 7 weeks.
|
| That's a lot for an ex-convict.
| Someone1234 wrote:
| With no driving experience? No... And they were talking about
| a commercial license anyway.
| sporedro wrote:
| You need to pass a road test which they are pretty picky with
| along with a written test. The written test had a lot of
| random crap you would never use imo. Honestly not too
| difficult but I imagine it might be for someone in and out of
| prison life.
|
| I don't know much about prison/jail but I do agree it should
| focus on re-habilitation they should have systems to help you
| study and get a drivers license while in there for example.
| hospitalJail wrote:
| I always wondered why they wouldn't let inmates create value
| with their skills. Seemingly manual labor that could be
| automated by a bunch of Undergrad Engineers that wouldn't even
| qualify as a capstone project.
|
| I understand if you have offline computers. I understand if the
| computer needs to be behind a plexiglass wall and the mouse and
| keyboard need to be chained down. But quickly these will pay
| for themselves. Data Entry pays significantly more, I imagine
| there are plenty of white collar criminals with tech skills
| that could make $30-$100/hr.
|
| Even if you only let the inmate keep 20%, the inmate is getting
| skills, money, the system is getting extra money, the company
| getting the data entry is getting cheap labor.
|
| I can't see too many downsides other than the initial set up
| cost. Pretty sure the right side of the aisle will see the $$$
| and approve. The left side should also see the $, but also know
| how humane and potentially rehabilitating.
| hzay wrote:
| > Even if you only let the inmate keep 20%, the inmate is
| getting skills, money, the system is getting extra money, the
| company getting the data entry is getting cheap labor.
|
| The inmate is also getting dignity and practice at regular
| life, which might convert a % of them to non-criminal life (I
| forgot the word for it).
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| There is not much dignity in being forced to work while you
| are only allowed to keep 20% of what you earn.
| bluGill wrote:
| After rent and food the average person gets a lot less
| than 20%.
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| Yes keep going on that train of thought because we're not
| disagreeing at all and I'm waiting at the station where
| it's taking you.
|
| Still doesn't mean taking 80% of the wages of prison
| laborers is anything but exploitative.
| jackmott42 wrote:
| If the prison system keeps ANY of the money you immediately
| get incentives for abuse and the unimprisoned may not like
| having their jobs taken by lowball prison laborl
| simonsarris wrote:
| The NH state prison lets people do woodwork and furniture
| restoration. You can buy the furniture at the retail store in
| Concord.
|
| https://furnituremasters.org/prison-outreach/
|
| https://www.nh.gov/nhdoc/divisions/corrrectional/index.html
| hospitalJail wrote:
| That is a nice first step, but this is nothing quite like I
| vision. People finding their niche and growing skills while
| making money.
|
| Although, I find the idea interesting that we could solve a
| supply issue in a field by training our prison population.
| Too bad the American Medical Association would never allow
| competition :P
| johannes1234321 wrote:
| > I always wondered why they wouldn't let inmates create
| value with their skills.
|
| In Germany prisons are to large parts "self sustaining" thus
| inmates do the cooking, washing, carpenter work, metalworks,
| car mechanics works, ... including proper apprenticeships in
| different fields compliant with Germany's apprenticeship
| system.
|
| Some prisoners also work on service for external customers,
| one can even buy products directly from jail: https://jva-
| shop.de/
|
| However pay is very low, way below minimum wage and different
| cost the state charges prisoners is directly deduced and
| while in jail the only place they can spend the money on is
| the shop inside, for cigarettes, sweets, TV sets (requires
| special permission), ... while that shop owner charges prices
| based on his monoply ...
|
| But the general idea of German jail system is that after jail
| inmates should have a chance to find a job with some
| education etc.
|
| Often failing for different reasons, though.
| ROTMetro wrote:
| UNCIOR does CAD work for McDonalds remodels and such. You are
| paid more working UNICOR (sometimes over $100 a month). I did
| CAD in college but I sure as hell am not using my education
| to make the Warden/Cops a fat bonus. Lots of guys did it
| though, especially those with no savings or people. It
| becomes...interesting when your boss is also your prison
| guard, and your boss' bonus is tied to performance metrics.
| i_am_jl wrote:
| Oh no, we did a slavery!
|
| EDIT: Allowing prisons to profit from the labor of prisoners
| creates a perverse incentive for the companies running
| prisons to keep prisons full. Maybe it works in places where
| prisons aren't run for profit.
| masklinn wrote:
| To be fair the US already do a slavery, prison labour is a
| thing.
| i_am_jl wrote:
| To be clear, that's exactly what I mean. Every perverse
| incentive that nudges for-profit prisons towards
| manufacturing prisoners is magnified by turning
| individual prisoners into revenue streams.
| di456 wrote:
| It's a US constitution problem. Slavery of prisoners is
| still legal.
|
| There's a film on it
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/13th_(film)
| joshuacc wrote:
| Interestingly, in the US, slavery is explicitly permitted
| by the Constitution as a punishment for crimes. (Though
| whether prison labor should count as "slavery" or as a
| different form of "involuntary servitude" is an interesting
| semantic question.)
|
| "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a
| punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly
| convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any
| place subject to their jurisdiction."
| robertlagrant wrote:
| This is less of a gotcha in the context of locking people
| in boxes, which we also normally don't do.
| ftxbro wrote:
| I'm always skeptical of so many stories like 'chess help x'
| because it's very easy to believe it's true but I also could
| believe it never helps objectively. I'm curious of the studies.
| nashashmi wrote:
| * * *
| hospitalJail wrote:
| Unpopular opinion:
|
| Why do we push games on society instead of work? Why is chess and
| MMOs fun, but not sewing a shirt or building a new app?
|
| I would disagree, I find sewing shirts and making apps fun, MMOs
| can be grindy and chess is basically just studying.
|
| I'm sure there are some relatively minor things like reward rate,
| physical exertion, etc... but I have to imagine much of it is
| cultural. Lets not take this to logical extremes, but rather, why
| don't we value group volunteer work more than playing chess? You
| have your social aspect, you have rewards, its often different
| and unique each time.
|
| As I've gotten older, its a bit apparent to me that 'beating
| Zelda' is more akin to work, than it is to getting fulfillment.
| (However, then there are games like Divinity Original Sin(2) that
| feel extremely fulfilling, can't deny that.) You wonder how many
| people are playing Call of Duty because a leader of a friend
| group saw the advertisement, bought the game, and pushed their
| friends to do the same. Instead of playing football, they play
| COD.
| yifanl wrote:
| The difference between "work" and "games" is how easily
| monetizable the activity is, not how useful the output of the
| activity is.
| n4r9 wrote:
| I'm not sure whether you're making a comment about prison
| society or society in general. Penal labour sounds like a
| pretty bad idea to me. But I can see a few reasons that chess
| might be good for rehabilitation (some referred to in article):
|
| * Simple, indisputable demonstration of intelligence. People
| from deprived background often have low self-esteem and very
| little evidence to show for their smarts, even if they are in
| fact intelligent.
|
| * It's traditionally a slow, thoughtful game, in stark contrast
| to the stress and demands of the outside world.
|
| * It provides escapism by totally focusing your mental
| faculties onto the world of the board.
|
| * There are few external expectations. No one will be upset if
| you make a silly move, like they would if you make some bad
| stitches.
| f33d5173 wrote:
| Prison forced labour might not be a good idea. Prison labour
| as an optional thing is definitely a good idea, and most
| prisons give prisoners the option to contribute, at least to
| the running of the prison, in exchange for certain
| privileges. The jobs include working in the laundry room or
| serving food. These are not intensely engaging occupations,
| but they are an improvement over the monotony of prison life,
| and give people the opportunity to excercise certain skills
| useful in the real world like teamwork, diligence, etc.
| im3w1l wrote:
| Games are better because you can choose who you play with
| rather than having to pretend to like some asshole. In a
| similar vein you don't have to submit to some bullshit boss and
| his bullshit rules.
| forgotmypw17 wrote:
| Chess specifically helps practice complex multi-step thinking
| and grokking multiple component systems.
| sobellian wrote:
| I play quite a bit of chess. I also develop software, so
| theoretically I practice complex multi-step thinking and
| hopefully I grok multi-component systems.
|
| Unfortunately I think chess does not help me at all in my
| job. I wish it did!
|
| Chess is highly specific. Most players tend to learn and
| improve on those specifics. I know that bishops are more
| valuable than knights in an open position. I know several
| openings to a depth of ~30 ply. I know many theoretical
| endgames. These things do not help me at all in any arena
| besides chess.
| hospitalJail wrote:
| Prove it with science.
|
| Skills from one area do not necessarily transfer over.
| NickC25 wrote:
| The whole point of the game is multi-step thinking.
|
| If I make a move, I need to prepare for the inevitable
| response, which might or might not be obvious to my
| opponent. The game is inherently more and more complex
| after each move.
|
| While things might not carry over directly in a provable
| way, there's a reason chess has survived as a game for
| hundreds of years - because there's definitely ways the
| game improves your thinking processes, pattern recognition,
| and abstract decision making skills.
| hospitalJail wrote:
| >While things might not carry over directly in a provable
| way, there's a reason chess has survived as a game for
| hundreds of years - because there's definitely ways the
| game improves your thinking processes, pattern
| recognition, and abstract decision making skills.
|
| No, you need science. This is Appeal to Tradition
| fallacy.
|
| Chess was the 'in' game for the upper class/nobility
| through history. That is the reason it survived.
|
| Wouldn't great chess players be fantastic outside of the
| chess world? Wouldn't kingdoms who had chess beat
| regional powers that didn't have the technology? Wouldn't
| chess players defeat their political rivals?
|
| If any of this was true, we'd see evidence of it.
| spicymapotofu wrote:
| Science is not a good tool to win an argument with. Are
| you trying to argue that abstract logic games like chess
| have no impact on how people otherwise live? This is a
| crazy stance, I hope you agree.
| hospitalJail wrote:
| >. Are you trying to argue that abstract logic games like
| chess have no impact on how people otherwise live?
|
| Yes, they don't have an impact from everything I've read.
|
| Again, it should be easy to prove. Why not see how the
| best chess players in the world do outside of chess?
|
| You'd think with all those abstract logic skills we'd
| have them running companies, universities, and being
| secretary of state. Instead all seem to be stuck as chess
| players.
|
| >Science is not a good tool to win an argument with.
|
| Feelings are better? No bud. It sounds like you just
| really want Chess to be useful.
| NickC25 wrote:
| > _You 'd think with all those abstract logic skills we'd
| have them running companies, universities, and being
| secretary of state. Instead all seem to be stuck as chess
| players._
|
| Sounds like you're not familiar with what Kasparov
| (undisputed #1 player in the 80s-early 2000s) does
| outside of Chess.
|
| Guy has told off Putin to his face, and has been a
| champion of human rights and democracy - getting arrested
| in his native Russia several times while protesting the
| one-party state Putin has built to enrich himself. He's
| also written books on geopolitics.
|
| Magnus Carlson has done alright for himself too. He's won
| a few poker tournaments, and last season was the best
| fantasy soccer player on the planet.
| hospitalJail wrote:
| >Guy has told off Putin to his face, and has been a
| champion of human rights and democracy - getting arrested
| in his native Russia several times while protesting the
| one-party state Putin has built to enrich himself.
|
| Seems like all of his hard work paid off /s. Weird that
| he can beat Putin in chess but not IRL
|
| >Magnus Carlson
|
| "At two years, he could solve 500-piece jigsaw puzzles;
| at four, he enjoyed assembling Lego sets with
| instructions intended for children aged 10-14.[10]"
|
| Doesnt seem like a chess thing though. I'd hate if
| someone attributed my success to playing runescape. But
| at least runescape teaches you economics.
| forgotmypw17 wrote:
| n=1 shrug
| whimsicalism wrote:
| I disagree with those who claim that only people from a certain
| social setting can comment on certain issues, but I have to
| admit that it provokes my ire a bit seeing HN commentators who
| likely have pretty much no experience with inner-city cycles of
| schooling/imprisonment/poverty suggesting more penal labor as
| some sort of solution and drawing on their experience of how
| 'beating Zelda' is akin to work.
| reedf1 wrote:
| Because reading Harry Potter is more fun than reading an
| economics textbook. And eating pizza is more fun than chicken +
| broccoli.
|
| tl;dr FUN!!
| cirgue wrote:
| At least with chess (and plenty of other games) it's a
| structured way of participating in cooperative
| competition/competitive cooperation. Your peers are your
| adversaries when you're actually playing, but they're also the
| people helping you get better. Work doesn't teach that, or at
| least not explicitly, but the ability to navigate social spaces
| where you're both cooperating and competing is _critical_ to
| getting anything done.
| kitsunesoba wrote:
| "Fun" is subjective. I love programming for example but most
| people would find it to be somewhere between dry and mind
| numbingly boring, which isn't good or bad, it just _is_. Same
| for MMOs or sewing or chess or what have you.
| Lio wrote:
| This makes me think about John Healy's autobiography The Grass
| Arena[1] which was later turned into a film.
|
| His unfortunate childhood lead him into severe alcoholism despite
| being a promising boxer. He ended up living a rough life on the
| streets of London, moving in and out of prison.
|
| On one of his stints inside he was taught chess and it turned his
| life around.
|
| It's pretty raw but a good book and worth a read IMHO.
|
| There's also a documentary about John Healy called Barbaric
| Genius[2], which I think is on Netflix and other streaming
| services.
|
| 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Grass_Arena
|
| 2. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1482452/
| mellosouls wrote:
| The film with Healey played by Mark Rylance in his pre-fame
| days, obvious talent even then:
|
| https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0101972/
|
| https://youtu.be/2uccHYLmQTw
| bjourne wrote:
| If you are playing chess for therapeutic reasons I strongly
| recommend playing without time controls. Blitz is fun and lets
| you blow off stream but doesn't provide the same benefits as
| staring at a chess position for 20 minutes does. Training
| yourself to keep focused for long periods of time will improve
| your skill in other activities too. For example, when analyzing
| complicated software bugs.
| huevosabio wrote:
| Agree!
|
| Although its a double edged sword. Untimed chess games tend to
| leak for me even after the game is over. I keep thinking about
| them long after.
|
| Classical chess is probably the last analogue activity that
| completely sucks me in.
| 0xdeadbeefbabe wrote:
| It will also cure your opponents insomnia.
| fasterik wrote:
| Just because you have a clock doesn't mean you have to play
| blitz. Why not play a classical time control like 90+30? The
| benefit of a time control is it keeps the game fair (one player
| can't spend more time than the other) and ensures the game
| doesn't last longer than you want it to.
| LanceH wrote:
| Losing a 4 hour game stings a lot more than playing 20 games in
| a row with a variety of results.
| zabzonk wrote:
| well, that was encouraging. perhaps games like D&D could help
| socialise these guys?
| kibwen wrote:
| "How Inmates Play Tabletop RPGs in Prisons Where Dice Are
| Contraband": https://www.vice.com/en/article/padk7z/how-
| inmates-play-tabl...
| zabzonk wrote:
| good link. from the title, before i read it, i immediately
| thought about spinners. and then, as this post is about
| chess, i thought of putting all the chess pieces in a bag and
| draw them out as needed black = 1, white = 0 (or whatever -
| somehow i predict quarells about this) and use the binary
| number generated.
| LodeOfCode wrote:
| Although with binary numbers you'd probably want to modify
| the rules to avoid rolling so many d20s, since you'd need
| to re-roll them 12/32=37.5% of the time
| rprospero wrote:
| You can do it with two bags. Place one piece of each
| colour, except for pawns, in bag A. Place the pawns and
| remaining pieces in bag B. There's ten unique piece in
| bag A and bag B produces colour with equal probability,
| so there are twenty distinct outcomes which all have
| equal odds.
| deadly_syn wrote:
| Easier to break up riots when they end up rolling for initave
| first
| xwdv wrote:
| One of my dreams has been to create a sort of tech prison where
| criminals would have a computer screen and keyboard built into
| the wall of their cell, and from here they could access resources
| to teach them computer science and writing code. And these
| prisons would have their own version of the internet that is like
| a "prison wide web" that is only accessible to other prisoners,
| and can connect to other prisons around the country and even the
| world, so they can create their own websites like it's 1999.
|
| With time, prisoners who gain a lot of skill could contribute to
| open source projects or create entirely new libraries and use
| their contributions as a way to reduce their prison sentences.
|
| I can imagine a custom Linux based OS designed to run on these
| prison computers, that could have special features that allow
| prisoners to see how much prison time they have remaining and run
| processes based on what access levels and security requirements
| they have attributed to them. And of course all communication on
| this OS would be surveilled by some centralized security system.
| 7355608 wrote:
| The prisoners learning the world's most valuable skill
| https://thespinoff.co.nz/business/29-08-2021/the-prisoners-l...
|
| Prisoners to programmers: How Take2's graduates are faring in
| the tech sector
| https://thespinoff.co.nz/business/18-10-2022/prisoners-to-pr...
|
| Slightly different example but as far as a constructive
| approach to incarceration goes schemes like this will always be
| a net positive. Far cheaper than locking people up.
| [deleted]
| dsabanin wrote:
| Alternative title: Ex-criminals become smarter and harder to
| catch after practicing chess in prison. /joking
| 0xdeadbeefbabe wrote:
| Another alternative title: Prisoners strategize about how to
| kill each other in chess
| johannes1234321 wrote:
| Oh that refreshes my memory. Some 25 years ago I did chess
| training with inmates in a German prison. That was quite an
| experience. We never did anything tournament-level, but mostly a
| somewhat alternative offering as part of the resocializing
| efforts before they completed their sentence of 10+ years.
|
| On other sports like football (soccer) there were prison teams
| however participating in the normal league system. With the
| little difference that they only had home matches. It was said,
| while I never checked, it was the fairest team by amount of
| yellow/red cards.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| Recently was playing chess with a friend in Dolores Park, SF. A
| man who said that he had only recently gotten out of jail/prison
| a few months ago (he said he dealt drugs in the Tenderloin) asked
| for a game and beat both of us (albeit close matches).
|
| He said he learned all of his chess in prison and was really
| excited to happen to find other people playing.
|
| He also had no idea how to use a chess clock, I guess they didn't
| have those in prison.
| sushid wrote:
| Just curious, what are your elos and where'd you place him?
| jrh3 wrote:
| Some days 3 hots and cot plus a chess club sounds pretty awesome.
| Unbeliever69 wrote:
| I know this is /s but you overestimate the quality of hot and
| the cot.
| AngryData wrote:
| Yeah I have to agree. Having worked in a US prison kitchen
| before, some of the food that gets served is worse than hot
| dog food and made me feel sick to even cook and serve to
| hungry people.
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