[HN Gopher] Working on databases from prison
___________________________________________________________________
Working on databases from prison
Author : dvektor
Score : 646 points
Date : 2025-06-16 12:32 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (turso.tech)
(TXT) w3m dump (turso.tech)
| gavinray wrote:
| Preston, great to see you made it this far!
|
| We emailed, back when the post about your circumstances was
| shared here in Nov. 2023. I knew you'd see success.
|
| Huge shoutout to Jessica and UL for all the work they do, and
| here's to a bright future ahead for you =)
| dvektor wrote:
| Thanks Gavin! Really appreciate the support.
| voidUpdate wrote:
| I'm glad to hear accounts of people in the prison system who are
| given the opportunity to do some good. While I am admittedly less
| sympathetic of dealers, the fact that the author recognises that
| they were in a bad situation and have been able to make positive
| progress since being given the opportunity to is really nice to
| hear
| komali2 wrote:
| I don't know the circumstances of this case, but in many
| states, e.g. Texas my home state, simply having above an
| arbitrarily defined amount of a given controlled substance
| automatically gets you tagged with "intent to sell." An
| overloaded court system combined with a pay-to-win "justice"
| system means a lot of people take the charge in their plea deal
| even if they aren't dealers.
| voidUpdate wrote:
| In the part 1 article, the author mentions "making tens of
| thousands of dollars a week" in relation to drugs, which is
| why I talked about dealing. Obviously I've got no proof of
| that or anything, so I'm happy to be proven wrong.
|
| Drug charges are difficult. In my opinion, if you are using
| drugs personally, I don't really see a problem. If you commit
| some crime while under the influence which could harm another
| person, eg driving while drugged, obviously that's a
| different story, and coercing other people into it isn't
| great either, but if you're just smoking in your own home,
| its your body that you're altering. If you're selling to
| other people, that feels a bit more iffy to me because you're
| affecting other people with that... though I do realise that
| preventing the sale is effectively the same as preventing the
| usage...
| int_19h wrote:
| When it comes to selling, the nature of the drug also
| matters IMO. I don't have a problem with people selling
| stuff like cannabis or LSD to consenting able-minded
| adults, but given the nature of opioids, there's no
| responsible way to consume them outside of medical
| necessity.
| BryantD wrote:
| Without judging this guy's current state, he makes it clear
| in his first blog post that he was a dealer.
|
| "So instead of coming back home broke and apologetic, I ended
| up pretty deep into this and soon was making tens of
| thousands of dollars a week, very much unapologetically."
|
| Then, after his first sentence:
|
| "I was left with the difficult choice of either living there
| and walking to a temp agency with hopes of making $10.50/hour
| doing manual labor (without an ID or social security card at
| this point), or getting on a bus to NYC to see some
| associates, and coming back in a week or so with $15-25k in
| my pocket and living in comfy luxury hotels until I could
| rent an apartment... I chose the latter: and obviously, was
| back in prison after a short 14 months of addiction and
| misery."
| dvektor wrote:
| Yes unfortunately for a long time my whole life revolved
| around 'drug culture', and so did of all my 'friends' and
| my entire social circle.
|
| I certainly cannot act like I did not deserve to come to
| prison, and it's definitely the only reason I am even alive
| right now. Coming to prison, specifically in Maine, was the
| best thing that ever happened to me.
| JonKKelly wrote:
| That is pretty awesome! I can imagine there are so many others
| that would benefit from programs like the one you are a part of,
| congratulations!
| manesioz wrote:
| God bless you.
| chatmasta wrote:
| How does the compensation work? The US prison system has a bit of
| a nasty reputation when it comes to exploiting prison labor, so I
| hope those practices aren't carrying over into these more
| forward-looking types of initiative... but at the same time,
| surely Turso isn't paying full SWE salary?
| laufey wrote:
| Just curious, why would you expect him to be paid less? I know
| historically pay is bad for prisoners, but if he's working the
| same hours and is just as productive as any other employee,
| shouldn't he be paid the same? I could potentially see paying
| someone less if they were coming in with much less experience
| than what's usually hired for in the role, but that doesn't
| seem to be the case here.
| the__alchemist wrote:
| I speculate: Supply and demand. He doesn't have many options,
| so doesn't have leverage in negotiating.
| chatmasta wrote:
| Well that's basically what I'm wondering. Is this a normal
| employment arrangement - subject to same state payroll tax,
| labor laws, employee rights, etc - with the additional detail
| that he resides in prison? Or does the employer need to go
| through some gateway enforced by the prison with maximum
| compensation or other restrictions?
|
| But otherwise, in terms of why he'd default to being paid
| less... yes, what the other commenter said: supply and
| demand, aka leverage. Turso could choose to be a good citizen
| and pay him the same as any other employee, but that's
| subject to all the questions I posed above, regarding the
| structural requirements placed on them as the employer.
| glommer wrote:
| I am the CEO of Turso. We are free to negotiate any salary
| we want with him, the prison system doesn't put any caps,
| up or down. We are paying him well, and certainly not
| trying to enslave him or anything. There are some
| restrictions on how the payments are made but not the
| amount.
|
| We also don't pay him healthcare, because he wouldn't be
| able to use it.
| koakuma-chan wrote:
| I assume he doesn't have to pay rent while in prison and gets
| free meals, so unless they take some of his income, he might
| actually be doing pretty good.
| wffurr wrote:
| The 13th amendment specifically allows slavery of prisoners.
|
| Edit: I don't mean to imply the author isn't paid fairly by
| Turso. A few posts down, the CEO of Turso asserts that they
| do pay fairly. The OP in this thread might reasonably wonder
| about this because several states do in fact use prisoners as
| unpaid slave labor.
| code_for_monkey wrote:
| finally, someone who took a humanities class!
| shermantanktop wrote:
| There are dozens of us. Dozens!
| code_for_monkey wrote:
| hacker news: a collection of the smartest tech minds on
| the internet, but only for code!
| mkoubaa wrote:
| If I was a prisoner one day I think I'd rather spend my
| days in slave labor than weird ethno-status games.
| pyuser583 wrote:
| It's unclear whether the carve out for prisoners applies to
| just "involuntary servitude" or "slavery and involuntary
| servitude."
|
| In practice, only "involuntary servitude" has been used.
| "Community service" - unpaid - is a very common low level
| sentence.
|
| The eighth and fourteenth amendments almost certainly
| forbid enslavement - permanently becoming human property -
| as a criminal sentence.
|
| Even before the 13th amendment, enslavement as a punishment
| not common, if it happened at all.
|
| There is almost no case law on the 13th amendment. There
| are no legal slaves in the US today, and there have not
| been since the 19th century.
| tristan957 wrote:
| If we pay people 40 cents an hour just to say they aren't
| slaves, they they are slaves for all intents and
| purposes. They are put in poor working conditions working
| for for-profit companies, making much less than minimum
| wage. How is it legal for the State to not provide
| sunscreen or shade for inmates doing outdoor manual
| labor?
|
| https://theappeal.org/louisiana-prisoners-demand-an-end-
| to-m...
| freedomben wrote:
| I don't disagree that 40 cents an hour is ludicrous and
| is only one notch above slavery, but I do think it worth
| pointing out that the work for 40 cents per hour is
| voluntary (i.e. they can quit or choose not to accept the
| work), whereas "slavery" is very much not.
| larkost wrote:
| In many cases the work is not really voluntary, there are
| sanctions for not taking it. Prisoners in some states are
| regularly put into solitary confinement for not
| "volunteering" to work these jobs (a punishment that some
| areas deem torture). With that amount of coercion I can't
| see them as voluntary, and so the slavery label is
| awfully close to the mark.
| freedomben wrote:
| In those situations, I would agree that is pretty damn
| close to the slavery mark.
|
| I've worked with a lot of prison facilities though in
| many states across the US and a few international, and
| have never seen that. That's not to say it doesn't happen
| of course, but out of curiosity do you (or anyone else)
| know of any facilities/jurisdictions that do that?
| tristan957 wrote:
| There is an example in this NPR article.
|
| https://www.npr.org/2023/11/13/1210564359/slavery-prison-
| for...
| brulard wrote:
| A prisoner costs taxpayers around $50k a year on average
| in US. If their "take-home" wage is $0.40/h, it may still
| be generous.
| TheGrumpyBrit wrote:
| You can make the exact same argument about employers paying
| different rates depending on the country the employee is
| based in, and for all the same reasons.
|
| Is there a good reason why a developer in Thailand or India
| should be paid less than their colleague who works on the
| same team, but is based in the US? Many companies believe so
| - there's a significant difference in the cost of living
| between those two employees, and employers believe it is fair
| to adjust the salary to provide a similar quality of life to
| both.
|
| Equally, a person incarcerated in New York City doesn't have
| the same living costs as a person who has to live in New York
| City, so you could reasonably argue that any "Cost of living
| premium" that a company offers to NYC based employees doesn't
| need to apply to a person who doesn't experience those higher
| costs.
| koakuma-chan wrote:
| > and employers believe it is fair to adjust the salary to
| provide a similar quality of life to both
|
| That's bullshit. E.g. electronics cost the same in all
| countries.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Actually, no they don't. With various forms of VAT and
| tariffs, things definitely do _not_ cost the same in all
| countries.
| koakuma-chan wrote:
| The point is that they are definitely not cheaper than in
| the US
| dylan604 wrote:
| Is that true still? I don't go searching prices in
| foreign markets, but something like the RPi being a UK
| piece of kit seems like it would now be more expensive in
| the US compared to UK simply based on recent tariffs
| being applied.
| crote wrote:
| Sure, but how much of your wage do you spend buying
| electronics? The vast majority of _my_ salary goes to
| fixed expenses like housing, food, healthcare, energy,
| and transport. Those are all highly location-dependent.
|
| In location A you might spend 80% of your salary on fixed
| expenses, whereas in location B you only need to spend
| 20% of that same salary to pay for those expenses -
| leaving you with far more money for discretionary
| spending.
| koakuma-chan wrote:
| For sure, but that doesn't justify doing that per
| country. If you live in SF you could be spending 80% on
| fixed expenses, but I'm sure that in the US there are
| places where you could be spending 20%. This applies to
| other countries as well.
| frakt0x90 wrote:
| Except prison has some very key differences from living
| freely in another state or country. You cannot leave and so
| don't have a choice about where you work. Even if cost of
| living is low in prison, you often still have to pay for
| being there and wages are far less than the cost. A
| prisoner will be released one day and their cost of living
| will skyrocket overnight. Do we want motivated hard working
| people leaving prison with nothing so they end up back in
| the same environment that got them there in the first
| place?
| tmoertel wrote:
| > Is there a good reason why a developer in Thailand or
| India should be paid less than their colleague who works on
| the same team, but is based in the US?
|
| Yes, and that reason is that people in most of the
| developed world are free to say yes or no to job offers
| based on their individual preferences. And, it just so
| happens, in Thailand and India there are many people who
| will happily say yes to offers that people in the US would
| say no to. The cost of living explanation that companies
| give is illusory; the reality is that they have to pay
| enough to get people to say yes.
|
| Now, you might ask why people in different countries say
| yes to offers at different compensation levels. But I think
| the answer is self evident: people will say yes to offers
| when they believe that there are lots of other people who
| will say yes to it. Under those circumstances, saying no
| won't earn a higher offer but cause the company to give the
| job to someone else.
|
| Ultimately, then, regional prices are set by what the
| locals are generally willing to say yes to.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| My understanding is that top talent gets top pay,
| regardless of their living arrangements.
|
| Mediocre talent ... maybe not so much, but these are also
| the folks that could be replaced by AI.
| tmoertel wrote:
| > My understanding is that top talent gets top pay,
| regardless of their living arrangements.
|
| Indeed. Top talent can say no to lower offers because
| they are confident that companies are unlikely to find
| other top candidates who will say yes.
| Ray20 wrote:
| >Many companies believe so - there's a significant
| difference in the cost of living between those two
| employees, and employers believe it is fair to adjust the
| salary to provide a similar quality of life to both.
|
| What a complete bs. If anything, in India it costs MORE to
| achieve a similar standard of living than in the USA. In
| India you can spend 3 times what a US worker gets paid -
| and you'll barely have enough money to get the same level
| of security that that worker gets.
|
| Companies don't care, they pay the minimum amount that they
| think will interest the worker for long-term employment.
| And since in India or Thailand the workers don't have such
| a wide choice in work - they will be paid less, just enough
| to get them. And they pay the Americans just enough to get
| them, it is just happening that for Americans this amount
| are several times bigger. That's all here is.
| code_for_monkey wrote:
| I guess if you look at pay as solely a result of 'work done'
| you'd come to this conclusion, and it should work this way,
| but really its got more to do with the relationship between
| employer and employee. A person in prison has a very
| different legal status than someone who doesnt and they do
| tend to get paid less.
| komali2 wrote:
| > but if he's working the same hours and is just as
| productive as any other employee, shouldn't he be paid the
| same?
|
| He should, but the median salary of engineers in Taiwan is
| like, 40,000 USD, vs SF which is 160,000 USD. Or London, if
| one wants to argue something about English language ability
| or whatever, is 80,000 USD. Literally half that of SF.
|
| Salaries aren't determined by labor value, they're determined
| by how well employers can collude in a region to get the
| lowest possible rate while still being able to hire people.
| Thus they somewhat tend to correlate with cost of living, but
| not really, e.g. see London vs SF vs NYC. All correlations
| are used as excuses, when the core, real, reason always comes
| down to, employers will pay as little as they can get away
| with.
|
| This annoyed me enough that I started a co-op about it, and
| we're doing pretty well. I'm still annoyed though. Apparently
| glommer, the CEO, pays him "full salary" (market rate?),
| which makes them a good person, but a bad capitalist. They
| could easily pay basically a slave wage and leverage this
| dude's ingrained passion for programming to get huge output
| for almost nothing - that's what the rest of the industry
| merrily does.
| gruez wrote:
| >Salaries aren't determined by labor value,
|
| In a free market, very little is determined by its "value".
| Clean drinking water costs pennies, but its value is far
| higher. People in developing countries routinely spend
| hours a day getting clean water, which works out to a price
| far higher than even bottled water from for-profit
| companies.
|
| >they're determined by how well employers can collude in a
| region to get the lowest possible rate while still being
| able to hire people. Thus they somewhat tend to correlate
| with cost of living, but not really, e.g. see London vs SF
| vs NYC.
|
| Is there any evidence there's more collusion happening in
| London?
|
| >employers will pay as little as they can get away with.
|
| You're making it sound like this is some sort of profound
| insight, or that companies are being extra dishonorable by
| doing this, but literally everyone in an economy is trying
| to pay "pay as little as they can get away with". When was
| the last time you tipped a gas station?
| Ray20 wrote:
| > they're determined by how well employers can collude in a
| region to get the lowest possible rate
|
| Colluding is only one of the factors that influencing the
| demand for labor. Moreover, in most regions it is a rather
| insignificant factor. Typically, this is the degree of
| economic freedom, protection of investments and capitals,
| the level of regulation and the tax burden in the region,
| not the degree of colluding.
|
| > good person, but a bad capitalist.
|
| Capitalism is not about evaluative characteristics, but
| about descriptive ones. It is not "bad capitalists pay a
| lot, good ones pay the minimum", but about "people tend to
| pay minimum, so to pay the minimum is expected behavior of
| capitalists"
| whywhywhywhy wrote:
| >but if he's working the same hours and is just as productive
| as any other employee, shouldn't he be paid the same?
|
| Why would the salaries all bump up to big American city
| salaries instead of resting somewhere in the lowest range
| worldwide? If we purely judge work completed.
|
| If you're a remote worker your competition is the world not
| people in the major city the company is based in.
| blks wrote:
| Because US constitution forbids slavery except as a
| punishment. A lot of prisoners doing labour right now are
| compensated literally pennies.
| Ray20 wrote:
| Because the level of payment almost always depends on the
| level of competition for a particular person's work. When
| you're in prison, there's practically no competition for your
| work. So it's expected that he'll be paid much less.
| glommer wrote:
| I am the Turso CEO. We pay him a full salary, just not health
| care benefits.
| david927 wrote:
| What you're doing is really wonderful.
| glommer wrote:
| I am just blessed and thankful that the Lord decided to
| give me a chance to help what HE is doing on Preston's
| life.
|
| I've done nothing.
| j-krieger wrote:
| Amen.
| 999900000999 wrote:
| Your doing the Lord's work.
|
| Even if you just paid him the state minimum wage, it would
| stop him from having a giant employment gap.
|
| The next step would be background check reform. A DUI record
| isn't relevant to anything not involving driving.
|
| Excluding a very small handful of SVU level crimes everything
| should be wiped clean after 5 years or so.
|
| I had an experience with a co worker who would brag about
| robbing people, selling substances and when he got caught his
| family money made it go away. He's a CTO at a mid sized tech
| company now. Had he been poor he'd have a record and be lucky
| to work as a Walgreens clerk.
|
| Was the biggest "tough on crime" person I've ever met. I
| think people with means don't understand if you don't have
| money you can't afford bail.
|
| Can't afford bail you'll just be indefinitely detained
| without trial for months if not years.
|
| Everything about the criminal justice system is about
| exploitation. Get house arrest, that's a daily monitoring
| fee. States like Florida are forcing released inmates to
| repay the state for the cost of incarceration.
|
| It's past fixing tbh, I'm personally hopping to immigrate to
| a functional country soon.
| glommer wrote:
| The Lord is doing His work, in Preston's heart. I am very
| humbled to given a chance to be a part of this.
| focusedone wrote:
| Reformed?
| glommer wrote:
| If you are asking me about my religion, I am a Catholic
| convert, after 20+ years of obnoxious militant atheism.
| badc0ffee wrote:
| "Militant", really?
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| I don't read this as he thinks all Atheists are militant,
| but that his own behaviour was obnoxious? If so, many of
| us have met those.
|
| It's nice to hear about someone who can change their mind
| so completely; the trick is not to swing to the other end
| of the spectrum, trading one absolute for another.
| GoatInGrey wrote:
| Militant atheists tend to embody anti-theism. It
| typically manifests as active desire to dissuade anybody
| from holding religious beliefs or performing religious
| practices.
|
| Any clergy, whether faithful or secular, has the capacity
| to act in a militant fashion.
| glommer wrote:
| yes, and obnoxious too. You should have seen me.
| Bowski23 wrote:
| Indeed HE is! Many prayers are being answered! Thank you!
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| _> Excluding a very small handful of SVU level crimes
| everything should be wiped clean after 5 years or so._
|
| My understanding, is that's what the UK does, with an
| exemption for certain jobs, like teachers and creche hosts.
| In the US, I think some states have the ability to expunge
| convictions. Not sure about federal crimes, though.
|
| The "scarlet letter" of a past conviction is a very real
| issue, and keeps some folks down. People can get past it,
| though. I know folks that served time for murder, that have
| very good careers, and people that have misdemeanor
| records, that have always struggled.
| wil421 wrote:
| My state will automatically expunge non violent
| misdemeanors after 2010, so if it happened before you
| have to jump through hoops.
|
| I know people who dropped out of college because they had
| a very small drug charge, no use in finishing if you will
| have a scarlet letter over your head forever.
| aerostable_slug wrote:
| That's really unfortunate. I work with people who were
| formally justice-involved every day and their educations
| have been an aid to them personally and professionally. A
| felony or a "bad" misdemeanor (e.g. domestic violence)
| isn't the end of the world, even in the modern US. People
| can and do overcome the consequences of their mistakes
| and thrive.
| justin66 wrote:
| Different states have rules about expungement, as far as
| what happens automatically, what can be done if an
| offender convinces a judge, and how much it all costs.
|
| Federal crimes (and I don't think that applies in this
| person's case since they're in a Maine DOC prison,
| although drug crimes of this kind easily _could_ be
| charged by the feds) aren 't usually expunged. Even if
| you receive a pardon, the original crime (and a note of
| the pardon) will exist on the record.
|
| It's a really strange system. You're meant to lie and say
| "no" during interviews after your conviction is expunged
| if you are asked "have you ever been convicted of a
| crime," although I believe in many states it's now
| illegal to ask such a question.
| dao- wrote:
| > Was the biggest "tough on crime" person I've ever met. I
| think people with means don't understand if you don't have
| money you can't afford bail.
|
| Or maybe they do understand. This kind of politics ensures
| the privileged stay privileged.
| crote wrote:
| > The next step would be background check reform. A DUI
| record isn't relevant to anything not involving driving.
|
| This is already the case in some countries, including The
| Netherlands. A background check is done for a specific
| "profile", and convictions which aren't relevant for your
| job-to-be don't show up. Someone with a DUI can't become a
| taxi driver, but they should have no trouble getting a job
| as a lawyer. Got convicted of running a crypto pump&dump?
| Probably can't get a job as a banker, but highschool
| teacher or taxi driver is totally fine.
| BizarroLand wrote:
| A surprising number of US states also drop crimes from
| your background checks or legally forbid them from being
| used against you after so many years, 5-10 on average, as
| long as they aren't directly related to the job.
|
| https://ccresourcecenter.org/state-restoration-
| profiles/50-s...
| derektank wrote:
| >Excluding a very small handful of SVU level crimes
| everything should be wiped clean after 5 years or so.
|
| It's nice to think that people should be able to fully pay
| back their debt to society but (a) criminal court
| proceedings need to be public in a free society and if they
| are public, people should be able to record and distribute
| the results as private citizens if we believe in upholding
| the principle of freedom of speech.
|
| Even if it were possible to prevent this, (b) this does a
| small but not entirely negligible harm to people that never
| committed a crime by casting some doubt upon them. This is
| most apparent for minority groups that are associated with
| criminality; they experience worse employment prospects
| when the state makes criminal records unavailable.
| miki123211 wrote:
| Criminal records should be available, but in a controlled
| way.
|
| Where I live (Poland), only the person itself can request
| their criminal record from the state. This is a routine
| procedure required by some employers, you can even do it
| online these days.
|
| Most if not all criminal offenses "expire" after some
| years, how long depends on the offense. If there's
| something you've been charged with but not convicted of,
| it doesn't appear on the record.
|
| This is easier to implement for us because there are
| limitations on how media can report on criminals (no last
| names for example). Even in the US, I think that system
| could be workable. Instead of attacking distributions of
| "unedited" criminal records, you'd have to target
| employers and require them to only acquire the state-
| approved versions.
| keybored wrote:
| > Your doing the Lord's work.
|
| Excellent marketing. They get a remote worker who is (in HN
| headhunter speak) a great and passionate talent. Of course
| they have no risks on their side. And they get praised for
| it on the very grassroots YC Combinator forum.
| bregma wrote:
| Is he paid in dollars or in cigarettes?
| gwbennett wrote:
| Bravo Zulu!!!
| dl9999 wrote:
| People like you give me hope for the world.
| tommica wrote:
| How does it exactly work in a scenario like this? Do you just
| pay to his account, or does it somehow go through the prison
| system?
| UncleEntity wrote:
| /me putting on my Law & Order hat
|
| Why should the taxpayers be burdened by the results of his bad
| decisions?
|
| /me takes off hat
| brettermeier wrote:
| Because that's what a social community would do. But where
| you probably are, such an approach is falsely labeled as
| "communism" by MAGA anti-social assholes.
| 1234letshaveatw wrote:
| false labeling- Your lack of introspection is wild lol
| y-curious wrote:
| Ad Hominem is only bad if it's used against _my_ in-group
| jrvieira wrote:
| how does the taxpayer benefit from the inexistence of
| rehabilitation programs?
| UncleEntity wrote:
| It's not mutually exclusive.
|
| Someone can both work towards rehabilitation and pay their
| 'debt to society'. If they earn over what it costs to house
| them in a Maine prison then, by all means, let them keep
| the excess earnings. If they earn $100k/year and the state
| pays them $1.35/hr then there are deeper institutional
| issues around prison labor exploitation which should be
| addressed.
|
| I used to have an uncle who was constantly in and out of
| prison over drug-related issues and he would do all sorts
| of work programs just to break up the monotony. Ironically,
| none of these rehabilitation efforts did any good and what
| finally 'set him straight' was the Three Strikes Law.
| esseph wrote:
| Taxpayers are clearly wasting money on this guy.
|
| Sounds like he gets out in 10 months, and an incredible
| amount of money gets spent keeping him there.
| glommer wrote:
| I wrote a letter to the judge to support his early release.
| My initial plan was to hire him once he was out. I am very
| sad he was denied his request.
| BlarfMcFlarf wrote:
| Imprisoning someone is also a great harm. That harm should
| have a cost, so that it is not employed flippantly.
| lo_zamoyski wrote:
| > The US prison system has a bit of a nasty reputation when it
| comes to exploiting prison labor
|
| Do you mean for private interest? If so, I would agree that
| prison labor should only be used for public benefit. And this
| labor should be part of the sentence.
| criddell wrote:
| Setting up an inmate for success after release is a public
| benefit IMHO.
| lo_zamoyski wrote:
| Absolutely. But this is a separate question.
| darthwalsh wrote:
| No, it's related. In programming, the only employment
| options are working for a government, for some
| corporation, or trying to sell directly to individuals?
|
| Somebody who had worked for a recognizable tech company
| is far more hireable than somebody who is Self Employed
| or who has worked for the government.
| giztu wrote:
| Somewhat relieved to see that this is the drugs prison guy, and
| not one of the two pedo prison guys who sometimes post on HN with
| their fake sob stories pretending to be hard done to while
| concealing their depravity.
|
| In contrast I'm glad to see this guy has been open and honest,
| owning up to his mistakes and starting to turn his life around
| and make amends for the harm he's caused others. Well done.
|
| _Edit:_ Please disregard that last paragraph. Just saw the
| document @bjorkandkd linked.
| echelon wrote:
| I tried to hire someone with a drug-related felony conviction
| to work on a Rust project with me. The guy was awesome, and he
| was super excited about the work we were doing.
|
| Unfortunately, due to the circumstances of our world today, he
| was understandably too anxious to move from his current job. He
| worried he'd never be able to find employment as an ex-felon if
| the runway ran out.
|
| I felt really bad for the guy.
|
| I wish things worked differently.
| bastawhiz wrote:
| Please see my nested reply to his comment, which shows that
| @bjorkandkd is not only making assumptions, but that his
| allegation is unsupported by even by the document that he
| linked.
| yu3zhou4 wrote:
| A great read, the first part is also worth reading. I'm happy for
| you Preston and wishing you all the best
| 0xbadcafebee wrote:
| > I quickly outgrew the curriculum, preferring instead to spend
| ~15+ hours a day on projects and open source contributions.
|
| TIL from 15-20yrs old I was a prisoner
|
| But seriously, programs like these need to be made available to
| more people, incarcerated or not. There's millions of people in
| this country who have basically no access to employment. Remote
| work could not only be a lifeline to those communities, it's
| advantageous to employers and good for the economy.
| code_for_monkey wrote:
| shame were doing a large push to return to the office anyways
| stronglikedan wrote:
| there's a good reason for that, fortunately or unfortunately.
| the numbers don't lie
| Macha wrote:
| Now if only someone could produce those numbers...
| barbazoo wrote:
| They don't lie whether they're there or not.
| GuinansEyebrows wrote:
| which numbers? the property values for big office
| buildings?
| barbazoo wrote:
| A connection which hasn't been proven to be meaningfully
| contributing to RTO.
| code_for_monkey wrote:
| which makes it worse right?
|
| My take on RTO is that its a soft layoff. You can get rid
| of a ton of people, reduce headcount, next quarters
| numbers look good. The other reason? Managers just like
| the office. Its a spot of manager power, they like that.
| code_for_monkey wrote:
| what is the good reason, can you tell me
| code_for_monkey wrote:
| and hear i am browsing hacknews at work on monday morning,
| wishing I was still asleep. Really gives you perspective, I hope
| you get out safe and sound and soon and things work out for you.
| timvdalen wrote:
| The Changelog recently did a long form interview with this guy:
| https://changelog.com/news/refactored-in-prison-0X1D
| b0a04gl wrote:
| what if prison ends up becoming the most distraction-free dev
| environment. no meetings, no slack pings, no linkedin recruiters,
| just you, a terminal, and 10 years of uninterrupted focus. kinda
| terrifying how productive that sounds
| mcmcmc wrote:
| No pings, just people who may decide to shiv or rape you
| wavemode wrote:
| Nobody gets shivved or raped in the kind of low-security
| prisons where non-violent criminals go.
| mcmcmc wrote:
| It's more rare sure, but it still happens. Either way my
| point was that romanticizing prison is a terrible take
| rawgabbit wrote:
| Don't give our overlords any ideas. Open plan offices are bad
| enough.
| financypants wrote:
| Something like prison probably is the most productive
| environment one could be in. It almost completely eliminates
| the need for self discipline because it's all enforced.
| msgodel wrote:
| If you're not dating anyway and don't own your house outright
| prison with computer access honestly doesn't sound bad at all.
|
| No need to worry about rent, no need to worry about healthcare,
| no need deal with all this social crap.
| ty6853 wrote:
| When I had a <3 year old demanding child I often thought
| about how relaxing prison would be, with relatively normal
| set sleeping, work patterns, and in some prisons guaranteed
| personal space at night with at worst an adult roomate.
|
| Just the thought of maybe being able to peacefully read a
| book for 30 minutes, at times I almost wished to be
| imprisoned...
| shreddit wrote:
| So two more years to go you say...
| GuinansEyebrows wrote:
| this is something you can freely achieve for yourself without
| prison -- no need to speak this evil into existence haha.
| koakuma-chan wrote:
| What are disadvantages of living in prison?
| yrds96 wrote:
| Disregarding the lack of anywhere to go, and assuming no
| enemies within the prison, I see no disadvantages.
| SpaghettiCthulu wrote:
| How's the food in prisons?
| barbazoo wrote:
| Almost sounds like you haven't watched season 3 episode 9 of a
| little documentary called The Office.
| h1fra wrote:
| PaaS - Prison as a Service
| keybored wrote:
| Terrifying that slinging code for years on end is what one
| aspires to as a free individual pondering asceticism.
| mlissner wrote:
| Maine's remote work program is an incredibly promising
| development to prevent recidivism. The amazing thing about it is
| that it gives _real_ jobs to prisoners that they can seamlessly
| continue after they get out of prison. Normally when you get out,
| it 's impossible to get a job, and the clock is ticking. This
| leads to desperation, which leads to bad behavior.
|
| There is a real risk of exploitation, but if it's properly
| managed, remote work for prisoners is one of the most hopeful
| things I've heard about the prison system. It gives people
| purpose while there and an avenue to success once they're out.
| lo_zamoyski wrote:
| This sounds good. It is important that we recognize _all_ of
| the purposes of punishment instead of overemphasizing one or
| neglecting the other.
|
| Punishment has three ends: retribution, rehabilitation, and
| deterrence. It is important that you pay for your crime for the
| sake of justice; it is charitable and prudent to rehabilitate
| the criminal, satisfying the corrective end of punishment; and
| would-be criminals must be given tangible evidence of what
| awaits them if they choose to indulge an evil temptation, thus
| acting as a deterrent.
|
| In our systems today, we either neglect correction, leaving
| people to rot in prison or endanger them with recidivism by
| throwing them back onto the streets with no correction, or we
| take an attitude of false compassion toward the perp by failing
| to inflict adequate justice, incidentally failing the deterrent
| end in the process.
| tomrod wrote:
| Rehabilitation is retribution.
|
| So many things can never have full repatriation. The best we
| can do is have society acknowledge, forcefully, the wrongs
| done via prison sentencing.
|
| But then many countries go wrong on policy - punitive
| imprisonment leads to worse individual and social outcomes
| than a rehabilitation focus.
| ty6853 wrote:
| One of the most baffling elements of the justice system is
| how little the victim is involved in the justice. 'Society'
| should not lord the lion's share of the justice decisions
| over the victims. Quite often the victim would prefer
| compensation and release over getting fuck all while the
| perpetrator languages in prison at the tax dollar of the
| victim.
|
| Much of 'justice' has been usurped from the victim into a
| jobs campaign for the state.
| dfxm12 wrote:
| I think you're confusing or conflating civil and criminal
| courts. If someone breaks a law, that's generally a matter
| for the state to decide in a criminal court. If someone was
| damaged (i.e. if the victim feels the perpetrator owes them
| compensation), that's a matter for them to bring up
| themselves in the civil courts. These are separate
| functions; one situation could be tried in both courts. A
| famous example off the top of my head is that even though
| OJ Simpson wasn't criminally convicted of murder of Nicole
| Brown and Ronald Goldman, a civil court found him liable,
| awarding tens of millions of dollars in damages, to be paid
| to their families.
| ty6853 wrote:
| There's no element of the civil trial I'm aware of that
| allows the prisoner to be released to perform activity to
| compensate the victim. In practice imprisoning the perp
| against the wishes of the victim robs them of their civil
| awards, either by delay or denial.
| cootsnuck wrote:
| No, I don't think they are confusing those things. I
| think they are critiquing the system at large and are
| alluding towards alternatives such as restorative
| justice.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| > A famous example off the top of my head is that even
| though OJ Simpson wasn't criminally convicted of murder
| of Nicole Brown and Ronald Goldman, a civil court found
| him liable, awarding tens of millions of dollars in
| damages, to be paid to their families.
|
| The trick here is to be fortunate enough to have a
| biiiiig monthly retirement pension that the courts can
| barely touch, or enough wealth to have already bought
| your mother a nice house (though I now read OJ screwed
| that up by not transferring her the title).
|
| https://www.southcoasttoday.com/story/news/nation-
| world/1997...
|
| https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-
| xpm-2000-dec-01-me-59847...
| tired-turtle wrote:
| Distancing the victim from the outcome of sentencing is by
| design and, arguably, for the better in a democracy. Crimes
| violate the social order, not just the victim. It behooves
| us all to have a system wherein (in theory) the system, not
| the victim, applies a set of rules to determine punishment,
| as contrary as that might seem to one's sense of self,
| morals, etc. It's a part of why "justice is blind."
| freedomben wrote:
| Also victims are nearly always emotionally involved, and
| emotional-based decisions aren't generally good.
| Punishments would be much more severe if it were up to
| the victims.
|
| If victims determined the sentences, I expect people
| would spend _a lot_ more time in prison, way more than a
| non-emotionally involved and wronged person would think
| fair.
|
| IMHO letting victims set the sentence would be the
| _worst_ way to do it.
| conductr wrote:
| It'd be such a mixed bag it wouldn't resemble anything
| 'fair'. I know some people who are against capital
| punishment even for obviously guilty serial killers. I
| know some people would think capital punishment is called
| for if you accidentally dinged their car door.
| nradov wrote:
| Most criminals aren't in a financial position to pay
| compensation. And even if you get a judgment, good luck
| ever collecting. When a drunk driver damaged some of my
| property I didn't bother sueing him because he was
| obviously a worthless deadbeat.
|
| In most US jurisdictions the victim of a crime is allowed
| to make a statement during the sentencing phase of the
| trial. So the victim can certainly request release if they
| want it although the judge isn't obligated to adhere.
| bregma wrote:
| You are baffled by the western concept of justice.
|
| In western philosophy an offender is considered to have
| offended against _society_ even if their crime is of a
| personal nature. As such, they are tried, condemned, and
| punished by society according to codified rules. A victim,
| if there is one, is not really a part of this process.
|
| There is a fundamentally sound basis for this philosophy,
| including equity (different justice for different people is
| no justice for anyone), impartiality, and respect for human
| rights.
|
| There are other philosophies of justice: for example, the
| traditional "I'm strongest I get the best stuff" or "you
| dissed me ima kill you." Some are codified similarly to
| western justice ("killing a man is requires you pay his
| heirs 100 she-camels of which 40 must be pregnant, killing
| a woman is half that, killing a Jew one-third, and so on").
| Others involve negotiation between victim (or their
| families) and offender -- which often works out well, since
| the offender is often is a position of power to start with
| and is very likely come out on top.
|
| The simple "an eye for an eye" is just the beginning of a
| very very deep rabbit hole you can go down on the road to
| enlightenment.
| wat10000 wrote:
| I strongly disagree. The victim is generally deeply
| incapable of being objective about the situation. How many
| perpetrators of domestic violence would go free because
| their spouse is too scared to ask for proper punishment?
| This is already a big problem with securing cooperation for
| prosecution, and I'd aim to make that better, not worse.
| You'd have enormous disparities in sentencing based on the
| personality of the victim. Should mugging a vindictive
| asshole carry a harsher sentence than mugging a nice person
| who believes in second chances no matter what?
|
| The justice system is pretty far from actual justice in
| many cases, but this wouldn't get it closer.
| tptacek wrote:
| There are (institutional, complicated, well-ordered) civil
| and criminal systems elsewhere in the world where victims
| are much more directly involved in sentencing and
| punishment, and you probably wouldn't want to live in one.
| ty6853 wrote:
| There are certainly differing personal opinions on what
| they'd like to live under. For instance, Dutch lawyer
| Michael van Notten moved from the western to to the xeer
| system in the horn of Africa, and found it superior in
| his personal estimation from the perspective of serving
| victims, as documented in his book.
| tptacek wrote:
| A clan-based blood-money system? I reiterate the claim I
| made previously: while you might enjoy reading about
| them, you wouldn't want to live under one.
| ty6853 wrote:
| I don't see it as a binary option. Why can't we learn
| from one another? I'm more interested in some of the
| elements found in for instance that system, where the
| victim can elect to prioritize restitution over
| retribution when it leads to a higher likelihood they
| will be made whole. I don't see any requirement that one
| has to embrace everything about a societies' system to
| find advantages in elements of it.
| tptacek wrote:
| Well, I'll just say, when I referred earlier to
| institutionalized systems wherein victims are given
| principal roles in meting out justice, I was specifically
| using that word to contrast with things like xeer clan
| law --- a system you just implied might be superior to
| our common law system (it is not). There are "modern"
| legal systems descended from that kind of oral tradition
| honor law. You would not want to live under them.
|
| Happy to keep nerding out on comparative legal stuff from
| around the world! Just keeping this grounded in "you
| probably wouldn't enjoy living somewhere where your
| landlord can have you imprisoned for unpaid rent".
| ty6853 wrote:
| I'll be honest, I have not seen a single _implemented_
| legal system I would like to live under, although that 's
| not to dismiss all systems as equally bad. I was
| imprisoned in the USA once because an officer claimed a
| dog alerted, resulted in being stripped naked and cavity
| searched -- but that doesn't mean the entirety of our
| justice system is bad. Which isn't implied to be as bad
| as, say, a rapist getting away with it via a forced
| marriage as might happen under Shariah or xeer law.
| coredog64 wrote:
| You're missing a function: Removal. Locking up criminals
| prevents them committing additional crimes that impact the
| general public. Data from the last few years shows that
| there's definitely a Pareto aspect to criminal populations,
| and absent an ability to rehabilitate, removal is the next
| best option for society at large.
| lo_zamoyski wrote:
| I would argue that removal can be analyzed into the other
| categories, or into something that isn't the province of
| punishment.
|
| 1. the deprivation of freedom is _retributive_
|
| 2. the prevention of additional crimes can be said to be
| _deterrence_ of an active sort
|
| 3. the protection of society isn't part of punishment per
| se, but a _separate end_
|
| This becomes clear when we consider imprisonment in
| relation to various crimes. Violent criminals are
| imprisoned in part because they are a threat to the
| physical safety of others. However, is an embezzler or a
| mayor embroiled in shady accounting a threat to anyone's
| physical safety? Probably not. So the purpose of their
| removal is less about crime prevention and more about
| retribution.
| BlarfMcFlarf wrote:
| The idea is that if they are making a rational choice to
| embezzle or not (and have other viable options for
| living), then knowing jail time is a possible outcome
| changes the expected payout equation. In that way it can
| be preventative, but only in those specific sorts of
| cases.
| jmpetroske wrote:
| Would love to read into this research if you have a link or
| something to search
| HappMacDonald wrote:
| > Punishment has three ends: retribution, rehabilitation, and
| deterrence.
|
| One might argue a fourth end as well: removal.
|
| When people talk about "cleaning up the streets" they don't
| mean causing ruffians to clean up their act, what they refer
| to is removing the ruffians entirely. To "someplace else". To
| "Not in my backyard". Out of sight, out of mind as is often
| said.
|
| For profit prisons may view prisoners as cheap labor or levy
| bait, but for the voting public who gets no cut of that
| action the real inducement starts and ends with "make the
| problem go away". Sweep human beings we do not know how to
| cohabitate with under a rug.
|
| Retribution may appeal to those directly wronged, or to the
| minority of sadists in a population. Deterrence is oft
| admired, but few honestly believe it's really possible given
| that harsh sentences never seem to cause crime to go to zero
| (sensationalism-driven media that magnifies every mole-hill
| notwithstanding) and that repeat offenses outnumber first
| offenses. Rehabilitation appeals to those with compassion,
| though nobody has a clear bead on how to actually land that
| plane with more than the lowest hanging fruit of only-
| slightly-off-course offenders.
|
| So I think the real elephant in the room is that people
| want/demand/rely upon removal.
| Ray20 wrote:
| >harsh sentences never seem to cause crime to go to zero
|
| Harsh sentences work great when used with the inevitability
| of punishment. It is obvious that a harsh sentence does not
| discourage a criminal to commit a crime if they expect to
| avoid any responsibility
| nlitened wrote:
| I think there's also a fourth "end" to prison punishment, but
| I don't know the proper name for it.
|
| It's when you remove the dangerous person from a society for
| a while, so they can't commit crimes for that while. This is
| very important part of prison punishment with people with
| criminal tendencies, and this is why recidivists get longer
| prison sentences for each subsequent repetition of a similar
| crime.
|
| Unfortunately we have to admit that some (small) percentage
| of criminals cannot be rehabilitated, so they must be
| isolated from society.
| ChadNauseam wrote:
| The technical term is incapacitation. (Other commenters in
| this thread are also referring to it as "removal".)
|
| For criminals that act alone, variations in the severity of
| the sentence doesn't seem to have the impact you might
| expect it to have on how much it actually deters people.
| (And there is the issue that people in prison can share
| strategies between themselves for how to more effectively
| commit crime, which is not an ideal outcome.) So indeed,
| incapacitation is a very important factor. When it's
| studied, you often see numbers like "increasing the
| sentence by 10 years prevents 0.2 crimes due to deterrence
| and 0.9 crimes due to incapacitation".
|
| I say this applies to people acting alone because, although
| I have no proof, I suspect that organized crime is a bit
| more "rational" in their response to changes in sentencing.
| If sentencing were set up so that engaging in a category of
| crime was not profitable for the criminal organization, I'm
| pretty sure they would realize this and stop. This logic
| doesn't apply to individual people, because the average
| person committing a crime has no idea what the sentence is
| or their odds of getting caught, and they obviously don't
| do it often enough that the random variation is amortized
| out.
| dfxm12 wrote:
| Do participants get paid a _real_ wage?
| glommer wrote:
| Preston was free to negotiate his pay with us, and we pay him
| a full salary. Just no health care benefits.
| dgacmu wrote:
| Does he actually get the salary, or does the prison take
| huge overhead?
| glommer wrote:
| they take an (actually very reasonable) cut, but he is
| free to take his salary.
| kgwxd wrote:
| No cut is reasonable.
| jjmarr wrote:
| They need money to pay for oversight. Any time prisoners
| talk to someone on the outside, it's a potential conduit
| for contraband or organized crime.
| Balinares wrote:
| The exact same is true of people working outside of
| prison.
| gbalduzzi wrote:
| I think it's reasonable to assume an additional risk for
| people in prison.
|
| Even though the enrolled people are completely
| trustworthy, doing this prevents untrustworthy people to
| simulate interest in the program just to be able to
| contact the external world for illegal activities.
| Retric wrote:
| Not really, contraband includes many things that are
| completely legal for non prisoners to have like currency,
| phones, knives, or alcohol. Sending that stuff to
| prisoners is illegal
| https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1791
|
| List of prohibited items: https://www.law.cornell.edu/def
| initions/uscode.php?width=840...
| snickerdoodle12 wrote:
| You can send phones, knives or alcohol via email or
| slack?
| Retric wrote:
| You can agree to pay for them at a given prices via email
| or slack. It's more or less guaranteed that contraband
| will get into prisons if someone is willing to pay for
| it. Thus the rules around no cash or phones for
| prisoners.
|
| Inmates are treated very differently by the legal system
| than regular people. Thirteenth 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"
| snickerdoodle12 wrote:
| You can also do that via a butt phone, which are
| everywhere.
| Retric wrote:
| That heavily depends on the facility. Phones aren't that
| difficult to track down as a radio device, but such
| efforts are rare.
| newswasboring wrote:
| People working outside pay rent. From a third to upto
| half their salary.
| hashstring wrote:
| Why would it not be reasonable?
| hildolfr wrote:
| Google feeds staff members and provides rest areas , why
| are they paid?
| Ray20 wrote:
| For not going to work for competitors.
| borski wrote:
| The government takes a cut then too, both from the
| employer and employer, in the form of taxes.
| kgwxd wrote:
| Which should be paying for the prisons and the operations
| society approves of to reform inmates. Prisons should not
| be a businesses of any kind.
| hashstring wrote:
| I agree that a prison should not be a business (aka a
| different model than the US-model). I also think that
| many prisoners are currently treated unfairly.
|
| However, ideally, I don't think that it makes sense for
| someone to go to prison, which costs tax money, and
| meanwhile earn the same amount of money by remote working
| from prison as someone in the outside world, who actually
| has living expenses to pay for (which get taxed also).
|
| So, I think, when it comes to fairness, it wouldn't be
| unreasonable if a partial cut goes to the TCOO of holding
| that prisoner.
|
| Now again, American prisons have their whole incentive
| model messed up, so I don't even want to get in an
| argument about America's implementation of this system
| and how it would lead to more problems-- because it's
| well-known and more than expected.
| Reasoning wrote:
| If my employer payed for my housing and food I would not
| consider it unreasonable that my paycheck reflected that.
|
| > Why are they paid
|
| Because people have expenses other than food and lodging.
| Prisoners do to, some save money for after they leave
| prison others spend it at the commissary.
| esteth wrote:
| Presumably the prison is providing the "office" where the
| person works from, the Internet connection, etc.
| lukan wrote:
| Also food and accomodation ..
| snickerdoodle12 wrote:
| 1) How is this different from any other prisoner
|
| 2) They wouldn't have to if they didn't insist on locking
| him up
| lazyasciiart wrote:
| It isn't different from any other prisoner. In many
| states you leave prison owing them back rent. Maine at
| least charges as a percentage of the prisoners income,
| rather than having them build debt.
|
| https://www.npr.org/2022/03/04/1084452251/the-vast-
| majority-...
|
| Maine: https://www.corrections1.com/finance-and-
| budgets/maine-lawma... "the state can deduct up to 20% of
| their income -- 10% for room and board, which is sent to
| the state's general fund, not the Department of
| Corrections , and up to 10% to cover transportation
| provided by the department. Since 2020, the state fund
| has collected a total of $2.4 million.
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| "No cut" is reasonable, but also "Some cut" is
| reasonable. However while arguing that "no cut" should be
| mandatory is reasonable, given that "no cut" would itself
| be reasonable, it is probably not pragmatic. Therefore in
| order to best support this kind of thing one should
| determine exactly how much "some cut" should be.
| osigurdson wrote:
| Isn't this largely just a one off situation that happened
| to work out? I doubt there will be legions of prisoners
| working remotely. If that future did come to be, it would
| be rather dystopian imo.
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| if, right now, it is not dystopian, then there is no
| reason to say it would inevitably be dystopian if there
| were multiple occurrences, although sure, I expect it
| probably would be considering what the world is like. Of
| course I am the last person who one would expect to say
| it but - there is always hope.
| psunavy03 wrote:
| More dystopian than people in prison not being able to
| prepare themselves for a life outside?
| mp05 wrote:
| Don't you suppose that it's "fair" to request
| compensation for the room and board if the person is
| making a "fair" wage?
| bokoharambe wrote:
| Forced room and board?
| Ray20 wrote:
| And also medical care. Literally socialism.
| oh_fiddlesticks wrote:
| To be honest, if he didn't pay a cut of his earnings
| while living off government allocated funds, wouldn't
| that put him in a better position than those who haven't
| been found guilty and sentenced for breaking the laws of
| the land in which they reside? I can't see a much
| resistance to the argument that they one really ought to
| pay the full cost back to the state, as with community
| service... no?
| BlarfMcFlarf wrote:
| No. Prisons _should_ cost society money. If you are
| taking away someone's freedoms, there should be a high
| cost so you don't do it flippantly when another solution
| will work.
| mp05 wrote:
| Wow.
|
| No, they forfeited their freedoms and we're put away by
| due process, but if that's your point of view then we've
| nothing further to discuss. Incredible stuff on HN these
| days.
| lazyasciiart wrote:
| Incredible for sure. To start with, it sounds like you
| think due process means that any kind or amount of
| punishment must be correct and reasonable, which. wow.
| Reasoning wrote:
| Are you concerned that if you make prison too expensive
| society might resort to capital punishment to reduce
| prison costs? Or we end up releasing prisoners who are
| legitimate dangers to society.
|
| And to be clear, I'm opposed to capital punishment and
| dangerous conditions in prisons. I'm just pointing out
| that I don't think your argument is very good. If you
| think we as a society are willing to flippantly put
| people in prison because it's cheap I don't see how you
| can trust us to no resort to other flippant measures if
| the cost was high.
| BobaFloutist wrote:
| No, because they don't want to be there.
| conductr wrote:
| I disagree. The cut should support the program itself and
| then further offset taxpayer expenses related to housing,
| feeding, and caring for the prisoner. I could even see a
| case for taking it as a way of ensuring it was saved and
| returned at release.
| franga2000 wrote:
| Fuck no! Lowering the cost of keeping people in prison
| would make it even easier for the government to lock
| people up for smaller crimes and with bigger sentences.
| It's even worse with the privatised prison system that
| the US has. They already know the "market price" (what
| the government is willing to spend) so adding "free
| money" into the equation just makes it easier for them to
| raise prices and end up pocketing even more money than
| they already do.
|
| Framing it as offsetting the cost would also make it very
| easy to increase the cut, bit by bit, until it gets to a
| truly unreasonable level. And since the person is already
| in prison and we have to pay for them no matter what, why
| would they choose to work if the deal is so bad?
| dfxm12 wrote:
| _It 's even worse with the privatised prison system that
| the US has. _
|
| This is a state by state thing. FWIW in this case, ME
| doesn't have private prisons. I don't bring this up to
| imply everything related to their cut is on the up and
| up, however, I believe Maine is very much incentivized to
| make this a useful program in terms of keeping people
| from returning to jail (as opposed to squeezing every
| dollar from the prisoners).
| conductr wrote:
| Fix the problem then, don't perpetuate it. If you think
| the problem is corrupt and profiteering prisons that will
| turn to this type of shenanigans, there's a bigger
| problem to fix.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| Huh? Universities take a 60% overhead in some scenarios.
|
| The dude is is prison, slave like conditions are
| ridiculous, but there should be a healthy overhead.
| tartoran wrote:
| Even in the case he doesn't, it's still an amazing
| opportunity to learn that would lead to a better future
| for sure.
| cooperaustinj wrote:
| Why not just pay them in exposure? I hope you can think
| about why the proposal in your reply is problematic.
| gadders wrote:
| Sounds fair, and it sounds like an excellent programme. I
| hope the developer's life continues on this new trajectory.
| antihero wrote:
| It's amazing. Absolutely insane that people are incarcerated so
| long for non-violent drug crimes, though.
|
| Turso also looks really neat for small Payload sites.
| CobrastanJorji wrote:
| Oh absolutely. Voters always favor harsher punishments or
| making things worse for those already convicted of crimes.
| You never get any more votes by pushing for lower punishments
| for any crime or by doing anything to reduce recidivism. I
| suspect that a pretty solid litmus test for "politician who
| is actually trying to make the world a better place" based
| just on how they vote for lowering recidivism.
| tptacek wrote:
| I agree with you. This is a crazy high sentence (15-30). But
| worth nothing that the fact pattern behind it was also pretty
| crazy.
| badc0ffee wrote:
| "Non-violent drug crimes" brings to mind hippies selling weed
| or mushrooms. But this guy was selling carfentanil. I'm not
| saying he's to blame for the opioid crisis turning street
| people into shambling zombies, clogging emergency services
| with overdoses, and causing death, but he certainly played a
| part.
| cortesoft wrote:
| He played a lot smaller part than the Sackler family, who
| ran Purdue Pharma and pushed their drugs into communities.
| They killed a lot more people than this guy, and yet none
| of them are in jail.
| tux3 wrote:
| The Sacklers are comfortably above the law and that's a
| bad thing, but that doesn't make small time carfentanyl
| operations any less bad
|
| Evil is a threshold, it's not a competition with limited
| spots
|
| Sometimes big crime families or notorious serial killers
| get away with it, but it doesn't lower the threshold for
| anyone else
|
| It doesn't make it any better that someone else is doing
| even worse. You don't get to do a little crime, as a
| treat
| cess11 wrote:
| "You don't get to do a little crime, as a treat"
|
| Why not? I much prefer a society in which I can get away
| with some crimes to one where every crime is prosecuted.
| rangestransform wrote:
| Discretionary enforcement is just used as a way to
| disguise discrimination
|
| Perhaps our laws would be fairer and simpler if
| enforcement were draconian and uniform
| theoreticalmal wrote:
| Very interesting spectrum you're suggesting
| badc0ffee wrote:
| The Singapore way
| dfxm12 wrote:
| Focus on the bad thing, not piling on the guy who is
| serving his sentence (while also making a new life for
| himself).
| rafaelmn wrote:
| I wouldn't say he's piling on him, just replying to the
| guy aboowho made it sound like this guy is in jail for
| smoking weed.
| ipaddr wrote:
| A few years ago they would have been in jail. Pick the
| wrong state you still could end up in jail.
|
| Punishing is always a recipe for they punishment going
| back to society
| ipaddr wrote:
| Evil is a religious concept.
|
| Selling drugs isn't evil. Not selling drug doesn't make
| you good. People take drugs for various reasons. If a
| doctor sells them they are good but if someone else sells
| them they are evil?
|
| The person buying could have been fired and can't afford
| Doctors prescription so the person selling could be an
| angel.
| e40 wrote:
| A doctor that over-prescribes them would be arrested,
| too. Or one that prescribed it to someone for a non-
| medical reason. (There are many of those latter docs.)
|
| People that sell fentanyl (or similar) are very bad for
| society, to avoid the triggering "evil". Look how many
| people have died in the last 10 years. It's insane.
|
| EDIT: I personally know a young man that died from a fent
| overdose and it's likely he didn't know what he took had
| fent in it. 22 years old and the whole world ahead him.
| Completely destroyed his family.
| cortesoft wrote:
| > Evil is a threshold, it's not a competition with
| limited spots
|
| No, but our enforcement has limited resources. We can't
| arrest and jail every offender of every crime, so we pick
| and choose where to spend our enforcement resources. All
| the money spent pursuing, arresting, trying, and
| imprisoning this guy could have been spent going after
| people like the Sacklers.
| BeetleB wrote:
| Bush and his cronies resulted in the death of far more
| innocent people than your typical murderer. But we don't
| stop sending murderers to prison just because Bush/Cheney
| are not in prison.
|
| I've voted for drug legalization (including possession).
| However, that doesn't mean that I condone all drug
| dealing behavior.
| e40 wrote:
| Whataboutism. Selling the drug he was peddling kills
| people. Lots of people. This is not a "no victims" crime.
|
| EDIT: another commentor found that it was MDMA and weed,
| so this discussion is purely theoretical and doesn't
| apply to OP.
| Reasoning wrote:
| MDMA and weed was his initial sentence. He's in prison
| now for selling synthetic opioids.
| nkrisc wrote:
| Yes, they should be in jail for longer than he is.
| swdev281634 wrote:
| > But this guy was selling carfentanil
|
| Do you have a source? It seems that guy was selling MDMA
| and marijuana. Here's the relevant quote from
| https://pthorpe92.dev/intro/my-story/
|
| _I was caught with MDMA coming in the mail from Vancouver,
| and some marijuana coming from california (the latter of
| which is what I am currently serving my time for right
| now)_
| badc0ffee wrote:
| From elsewhere in the thread:
|
| * https://apnews.com/general-
| news-d68dca63e95946fbb9cc82f38540...
|
| * https://www.doj.nh.gov/news-and-media/preston-thorpe-
| sentenc...
| gpm wrote:
| Gluing a few stories together (links included below where
| I'm not citing to your link) it seems like:
|
| ~2012 he was caught selling MDMA and marijuana, and went
| to prison
|
| ~end or 2015 or start of 2016 he was released on
| probation
|
| [Edit: Added entry] December 2016 police responding to a
| domestic violence call enter his apartment to make
| contact with the alleged victim, and discover U-47700 (a
| synthetic opioid) https://www.courts.nh.gov/sites/g/files
| /ehbemt471/files/docu...
|
| April 2017 the police find traces of carfentanil while
| executing a search warrant at his place - plausibly but
| not provably linked to some recent carfentanil deaths -
| and police announce they are searching for him.
| https://www.cbsnews.com/boston/news/man-wanted-suspected-
| let...
|
| May 2017 he ends up back in prison.
|
| Aug 2017 he pleads guilty to possession of U47700 (a
| synthetic opioid) with intent to distribute
| https://www.wmur.com/article/defense-plans-appeal-of-
| search-...
|
| Oct 2017 he's sentenced to 15-30 years on the above
| charge, he has not been charged with possessing the
| carfentanil (yet) despite the apparent evidence
| https://www.wmur.com/article/man-facing-carfentanil-
| charge-r...
|
| The articles aren't clear on this, but given his own
| recounting I assume that a suspended sentence for
| Marijuana was un-suspended as a result of the new charges
| and he is serving that sentence first, or concurrently.
| croemer wrote:
| Or he's downplaying the seriousness of the crime. Thanks
| for digging!
| refulgentis wrote:
| I find it somewhat amusing that I woke up to this post at
| ~9 AM, and was surprised at the crowding-out of discussion
| about the article, by people sort of half-groping at a
| straw or two they picked up, trying to make a definitive
| case on his...goodness? morality?...based off the straw
| they're holding.
|
| It is now 4 PM, about to clock out for the day because I
| gotta wait for CI run thats >30m. I come back here and it's
| still going on. This is #3 comment I see when I open HN,
| ensuing thread takes up two pages scrolls on 16" MBP.
|
| It's bad of me to write this because, well, who cares?
| Additionally, am I trying to litigate what other people
| comment?
|
| The root feeling driving me to express myself is a form of
| frustrated boredom -- rolling with that and verbalizing
| concretely, a bunch of people writing comments with the one
| thing they're hyperfocusing on their record to drive a
| conclusion on their value as a person/morality, and then
| people pointing out that's not some moral absolute, asking
| for links, discussing the links...
|
| ...well, it's all just clutter.
|
| Or YouTube comment-level discussion, unless we're planning
| on relitigating every case he's been involved in.
|
| This all would be better if it the kangaroo court stuff was
| confined to a thread with _all_ of the evidence against
| him, so we didn 't have a bunch of weak cases, or if people
| didn't treat this as an opportunity to be a drive by judge.
| Article def. ain't about his crimes, and he ain't saying
| he's innocent or an angel.
|
| (and the idea that "drug crimes" implies "hippie selling
| weed or psychedelics" so calling them "drug crimes" is
| hiding the ball...where does that come from? Its especially
| dissonant b/c you indicate the mere fact he sold an opiod
| is so bad that this guy is...bad? irredeemable? not worth
| discussing?...so presumably you care a lot about opiods, so
| presumably you know that's whats driven drug crime the
| last, uh, decade or two?)
| badc0ffee wrote:
| > trying to make a definitive case on his...goodness?
| morality?
|
| Speaking for myself, I'm actually just discussing the
| idea that a non-violent crime like drug dealing
| necessarily deserves a light sentence in general.
|
| > Sounds like a you thing
|
| It is a me thing. That's why I said "brings to mind".
|
| I'm a product of my time. I remember when weed and
| psychedelics meant demonization and heavy sentences, and
| it was absurd because those substances aren't that
| dangerous.
|
| This is the context in which I'm accustomed to calling
| drug dealing a "non-violent crime". So, I feel like I
| need to point out that things are not quite the same with
| deadly drugs like carfentanil.
| lazyasciiart wrote:
| They are largely the same though. Small-time dealing of
| any drug is often just being the guy in your circle of
| users that does the group buying, maybe it was just your
| turn. Or your dealer says you can pay for your purchase
| by driving this package across town. Now you've been
| caught with enough pills to kill 30 people and the intent
| to distribute - is that an action that hits your
| threshold for heavy sentences and bad people?
| ahahs wrote:
| Say that to the people he killed selling those drugs. This
| isn't weed, it's highly lethal pills.
| OvidNaso wrote:
| If he killed anyone he should be charged with murder or
| manslaughter.
| nickff wrote:
| Many dealers and addicts who are involved in extremely
| violent crimes are plead down to drug crimes after having
| been charged with both drug and violent crimes.
|
| https://www.courts.nh.gov/sites/g/files/ehbemt471/files/d
| ocu...
|
| > _" On December 24, 2016, three Manchester police
| officers responded to an apartment following a report of
| a domestic dispute. The report was made by the mother of
| Ashley Arbogast, who advised that her daughter had called
| her Stating that her boyfriend had broken her arm during
| an argument."_
| BobaFloutist wrote:
| Ok, but we should punish people for the crimes they're
| convicted of, not the crimes we've decided for ourselves
| they committed.
| nickff wrote:
| He is being punished for what he was convicted of;
| whether you agree with the penalty or not. If we do
| change the penalties, the convictions will change too.
|
| I just wanted to point out that there is clear evidence
| that this individual was involved in at least one violent
| act, as is often the case with 'non-violent drug
| convicts'.
| ipaddr wrote:
| Any yet there are coke-cola machines everywhere including
| inside police stations which kills more people each year.
|
| And only one company is allowed to import the specific
| leaves/material (coca leafs). The government restricts
| everyone from importing them unless it's one of the biggest
| companies in the world.
| genewitch wrote:
| McDonalds had a location inside the hospital in my metro
| area. For at least decades, they finally left that
| location during covid, sometime.
|
| i can't even, and it sounds made up.
| trod1234 wrote:
| One of the biggest problems with the prison system in the US is
| that prisoners are often saddled with the debt related to or
| imposed on them by their incarceration which they can't pay
| back.
|
| The inability to find a job coupled with the crushing interest
| is what leads to desperation, and then repeat criminal
| behavior.
|
| > There is a real risk of exploitation
|
| Centralized systems always have a risk of corruption when power
| is concentrated in few people. Those job roles also many times
| attract the corrupt; and even when you have people who go in
| with a good moral caliber, the regular dynamics of the
| interactions may also twist them into being corrupt.
|
| Its a rare person with sufficient moral caliber that can
| survive such a job (as a guard or other prison staff) unscathed
| and still be a good person afterwards.
|
| Many avenues of education also do not prepare them
| appropriately for work in the private sector, and some careers
| are simply prohibited. For example becoming a chemist or
| engineer when they have a conviction related to ethics
| violations in such fields.
| larodi wrote:
| Wonder if they acquire the skills to break into systems, why
| would they choose not to do it in this crazy world out there?
| Particularly if somebody spends long time, or has spent so far.
| _DeadFred_ wrote:
| How do they make sure the prison isn't just employing people
| already experienced in the field to make the prison money? How
| do they ensure people are treated fairly (normally prisoners
| aren't really even allowed sick days, they can't chose not to
| work overtime if required, etc)? Do they audit to ensure number
| of sick hours are comparable to non-prison work? Do they ensure
| prison guards bonus' aren't based on inmate performance (UNICOR
| does all of the above bad practices resulting in sick people
| being forced to work overtime in order to get the guards their
| bonus)?
|
| UNICOR/the Federal system 'strongly encourages' people with CAD
| experience, etc do the McDonalds remodel contracts, the World
| Trade Center work, etc. These are people that worked in the
| industry prior to prison and that are not traditionally been
| hired back after release, so it's simply being used to make
| UNICOR money on big contracts based on incarcerated individuals
| pre-existing training being exploited. In addition having
| structural CAD work done by people with zero say in their job,
| their deliverables/quality, their hours, etc seems like a bad
| idea. I don't know why outside engineers are using this work.
| The UNICOR McDonalds remodels are probably fine (though you can
| tell by the current feel of McDonalds that the remodels were
| literally done by prison inmates), but the UNICOR World Trade
| Center stuff seems super sketchy.
| philjohn wrote:
| Yep - turns out the Nordic countries had it right all along.
| When you focus on rehabilitation and not just punishment you
| get lower redicivism rates. Who would have thought it?
| gabeio wrote:
| > When you focus on rehabilitation and not just punishment
|
| From a book I recently read on the subject they seem not just
| to focus on rehab and lack of punishment. If there are
| disputes with others within the facilities the ones in the
| dispute must sit down and talk through their issues and find
| a resolution. This helps ingrain proper anger management &
| helps re-acclimate them to normal society where violence is
| rarely the best option. And it makes a ton of sense, if they
| never are taught how to talk out their issues they will go
| back to how they have handled those issues all along.
| philjohn wrote:
| To be honest, that could certainly be filed under
| "rehabilitation". Giving people the skills they need to be
| productive members of society is definitely in that
| wheelhouse.
| koolba wrote:
| I would bet a mostly homogeneous population contributes to
| this.
| kurikuri wrote:
| They were likely in a homogeneous population when they
| committed the crime that got them there in the first
| place, so that confounder might not matter much at all.
| skeptrune wrote:
| Extremely hopeful that more prison systems adopt work programs
| like Maine's
| johnnyApplePRNG wrote:
| Speaking of incarcerated tech gurus... I've been really liking
| what Sam Bent [0] has been producing lately.
|
| If you're allowed/able to watch YouTube in American prisons, I
| would definitely check him out!
|
| [0] https://www.youtube.com/@Sam_Bent/videos
| keepamovin wrote:
| Reading this, I think it's a crime that this guy is not out on
| early release. The majority of his sentence was for marijuana,
| which is now widely decriminalized and in some places legalized.
| BizarroLand wrote:
| I agree he should be released but using the mail to transport
| marijuana across state lines is definitely not legalized or
| decriminalized anywhere.
| bastawhiz wrote:
| I do not believe this is true. Looking at the record, marijuana
| is one of a few drugs. The specific incident that led to his
| current sentence is related to a powerful opioid. This is
| corroborated by Preston's own personal website.
| badc0ffee wrote:
| He received a suspended sentence for the marijuana. But then he
| breached his probation, and there were later charges including
| one for carfentanil.
| robinhood wrote:
| I'm so glad this is possible. Kudos to Turso for giving this man
| a new chance. We often criticize people for past bad behavior,
| but in many cases (not all, of course), they deserve a second
| chance in life, since most of us can change.
| studentik wrote:
| In Soviet Union having prisoners do soft labor was called
| Sharashka. This scales and creates incentives to have more
| prisoners doing cheap labor.
| tiffanyh wrote:
| Very interesting.
|
| I have some basic questions if anyone knows:
|
| a. do all inmates get computer & internet access? (or only some,
| dependent upon the crime you committed)
|
| b. do the inmates have to pay to use the computer & internet? I
| ask because I hear commissary is prohibitively expensive in
| prison.
|
| c. how much time per week do inmate get to use the computer with
| internet access? (and is that time guaranteed they will get)
|
| d. are there job boards specific to helping inmates find remote
| friendly jobs that are accepting of incarcerated individuals?
| msarchet wrote:
| There's a link to a post on his personal blog that explains a
| lot of this
| qingcharles wrote:
| This place is an absolute rarity. Almost zero jails or prisons
| have any access to the Internet at all. Many of the places I
| know won't even allow a print-out of any information from the
| Internet (e.g. Wikipedia, Facebook etc) and won't allow any
| books about computers for security reasons.
|
| Commissary is generally "gas station" prices in jails and
| prisons.
|
| Some of the inmates I work with right now have tablets that
| allow music streaming from a small catalog, but I think it is
| $3/hour to listen to it.
|
| Obviously the families and friends of the loved are the ones
| burdened with paying for all of these, unless you can get an
| in-prison job that pays, e.g. dealing drugs is probably the
| highest paid, sadly.
| kaboomshebang wrote:
| Inspirational story. Thanks for sharing :)
| h1fra wrote:
| Prison is about rehabilitation, anything else is either slavery
| or poor politics. Very glad to see this blog post!
| qingcharles wrote:
| I've got a lot of experience working with prisoners. I've
| almost never seen any rehabilitative programs of any value at
| all. Mostly the programs I see are "learn to mop floors."
|
| I just helped someone to complete a year-long paralegal course
| and qualification while inside. The Illinois prison system has
| now banned this since (a) it came with the option of facilities
| awarding a 6 month reduction in the length of a non-violent
| sentence, (b) required the facility to allow someone to proctor
| the final exam.
| danscan wrote:
| Locked up, locked in!
|
| On a serious note, I think inmates should have 24/7 laptop
| computer access with (at least) limited sessions of internet
| connectivity.
| qingcharles wrote:
| The place I was at you weren't even allowed a book about
| computers, lest you might gain enough knowledge to somehow
| access a facility computer and hack your way to freedom.
|
| They had a computer lab, but it was only for Mavis Beacon. I
| found the C# compiler that's hidden away in the Windows
| directory and started teaching programming on the sly. Luckily
| one of the nuns at the facility took pity on me and bought _C#
| Weekend Crash Course_ on Amazon (with the CD) and sneaked it
| through the security checks for me so I 'd have a good
| reference to teach from.
| aerostable_slug wrote:
| For those who might be wondering, facilities/counties/states
| vary a huge amount on what is and isn't allowed.
|
| In California they teach inmates coding, while in other
| states all computer-related technical books are banned as
| security risks. Same with basic electrical work -- Promising
| People has an interesting VR program for teaching electrical
| helper skills, but in some correctional systems that would be
| considered unacceptably risky. Tablet and similar system
| operators/vendors have to shape the material available to the
| inmates to suit the local restrictions.
| TechDebtDevin wrote:
| Crazy to keep seeing PThorpe from Primes Discord on HNs front
| page. I hope youre doing alright in there.
| treebeard901 wrote:
| When the Government is so corrupt they can take your ability to
| work any kind of job away from you without even arresting you for
| anything, having employment from prison is a real achievement.
| josh_carterPDX wrote:
| This needs to be a model for other states to follow. Too often,
| incarcerated people are left with very few real options to have a
| viable career beyond some sort of physical trade like
| construction, hospitality, or food service. And while all of
| those career options are great, they do not often provide a real
| living wage.
|
| Hopefully, we see more of this throughout the country!
| itpragmatik wrote:
| Fantastic accomplishment, Preston! Wish you good luck and the
| very best ahead!
| jamesblonde wrote:
| The scary thing is that Maine is considered progressive for
| prison.
|
| My former (brilliant) student developed schizophrenia and tried
| to rob a bank with a gun because the voices told him to do it. He
| got 10 years in jail. I think every EU country would treat him
| for his condition until he was safe to rejoin society. In the US,
| he was thrown in the slammer.
|
| https://www.irishtimes.com/news/irishman-jailed-for-10-years...
| Aurornis wrote:
| > I think every EU country would treat him for his condition
| until he was safe to rejoin society. In the US, he was thrown
| in the slammer.
|
| From the article, his parents express frustration at their
| inability to get him committed for treatment in Ireland. They
| cite the lack of response there as a key factor in his spiral.
|
| Also, the US facility he was sent to _did_ offer psychiatric
| treatment and the judge urged him to accept it:
|
| > The judge recommended that Clarke serve his sentence at a
| prison that would give him access to psychiatric treatment and
| he urged Clarke to accept it.
|
| I understand your objections to the "slammer" but the sentence
| was actually as lenient as could be, offered the psychiatric
| treatment he needed, and had an opportunity for him to return
| to Ireland in a couple years:
|
| > Speaking on behalf of the Clarke family, solicitor Eugene
| O'Kelly said that they were relieved at the relative leniency
| of the sentence and expressed the hope Clarke could be returned
| to Ireland "within a year or two" to serve out his sentence.
| sealeck wrote:
| Not everyone is capable of reading an article :)
| jamesblonde wrote:
| Why do you call it a facility?
|
| Do i need to explain the difference between treatment at a
| pyschiatric center vs the offer of psychiatric treatment in a
| prison?
|
| If you think they are somehow equivalent, you are very much
| mistaken.
|
| You are putting somebody with pyschiatric illness in with
| hardened criminals. Do they welcome him with open arms?
| keybored wrote:
| > My former (brilliant) student developed schizophrenia and
| tried to rob a bank with a gun because the voices told him to
| do it. He got 10 years in jail. I think every EU country would
| treat him for his condition until he was safe to rejoin
| society. In the US, he was thrown in the slammer.
|
| Is the story supposed to be more sympathetic because he was
| (brilliant)?
| jamesblonde wrote:
| Putting brilliant in parentheses indicates that it is
| parenthetical. That means it's an aside, an afterthought, or
| additional information that isn't essential to the main point
| of the sentence.
|
| What is your point?
| croemer wrote:
| Great story, I wish this inspired more prisons around the world
| to follow suit.
|
| For those who don't want to hit Google, the conviction was for
| possessing 30g of a synthetic opioid "U-47700". A normal dose is
| ~1mg, 10mg can be deadly (so this was 30000 trips or killing
| 3000).
|
| The drug became illegal across the US on November 14, 2016.
|
| "Police said they found the drug in Thorpe's apartment in
| Manchester in December 2016" (https://apnews.com/general-
| news-d68dca63e95946fbb9cc82f38540...)
|
| "Preston Thorpe, age 25, was sentenced by the Hillsborough County
| Superior Court (Northern District) to 15 to 30 years stand
| committed in the New Hampshire State Prison for possession of the
| controlled drug
| 3,4-dicholo-N-[2-(dimethylamino)-cyclohexyl]-N-methylbenzamide
| (also known as "U-47700") with the intent to distribute. U-47700
| is a synthetic opioid that is classified as a Schedule I drug."
| (https://www.doj.nh.gov/news-and-media/preston-thorpe-sentenc...)
| TulliusCicero wrote:
| Wow, 15-30 years seems like an insane amount of time for drug
| possession. Even if the amount implied dealing, that still
| seems really high. Don't people typically get less than that
| for sexual assault or armed robbery?
| brabel wrote:
| In Northern Europe you get less than that for murder.
| pookha wrote:
| Unlikely...He's an incredibly callous individual that was
| cutting drugs with a substance orders of magnitude more
| dangerous than fentanyl so he could drive an Audi and live
| the high life. Given that they tied several deaths back to
| his operation, and that it was a multi-state joint effort,
| I doubt he'd get a slap on the wrist by a European judges.
| glommer wrote:
| was an incredibly callous individual.
| rqmedes wrote:
| Agreed $&@!& him, and any company hires him
| zaphar wrote:
| I don't know. If you are in posession of enough of a
| controlled substance to kill 300 people I'm kind of okay with
| a drastic response. For every Preston Thorpe who turns their
| life around there 100s of others who will just go out and
| keep endangering lives like this. I think this is a nuanced
| topic and 10-30 years is too much for drug possession is
| entirely lacking the necessary nuance to evaluate. Comparison
| to other crimes is not particularly useful either without
| going into the relative harms of each as compared to the
| harms of the other.
| stickfigure wrote:
| "enough of a controlled substance to kill" is an absurd,
| inflammatory metric. They guy was selling a good to willing
| and aware buyers and we have no reason to believe he was
| trying to kill anyone.
|
| He shouldn't be in prison, period.
| zurfer wrote:
| Drug dealers should face prison time. They know that they
| are breaking the law and potentially ruining lifes for
| their own profit.
| simulator5g wrote:
| I really doubt he told the buyers this was synthetic BS,
| more likely he lied to all his customers about the
| substance and thus could have killed them due to mis-
| dosing...
| Aurornis wrote:
| > They guy was selling a good to willing and aware buyers
|
| In general, high-potency opioids are cut (diluted) with
| other powders and then sold as a different product to
| unsuspecting buyers.
|
| Most fentanyl overdoses are from people who thought they
| were consuming a different, more familiar opioid.
| Fentanyl and other synthetic opioids like this one are
| preferred by drug dealers because it's much easier to
| smuggle a tiny amount of powder and cut it 1000X than to
| smuggle the real product.
|
| It's nearly impossible for amateurs to properly dilute a
| powder like this, so the end product has a lot of "hot
| spots" that lead to overdose.
| Hamuko wrote:
| > _They guy was selling a good to willing and aware
| buyers_
|
| How do you know that they were both willing and aware?
| Just how aware is your average drug buyer on what they're
| buying and how upfront your average drug seller on what
| they're selling?
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| >> to willing and aware buyers
|
| This part is really debatable, based on what we're seeing
| with overdoses. The dealers (probably) know what they're
| selling but I'm not sure the buyers do, which even for a
| legal good would be a crime.
| BeetleB wrote:
| > They guy was selling a good to willing and aware buyers
| and we have no reason to believe he was trying to kill
| anyone.
|
| People have already addressed the "aware" part, but
| "willing"? Really? Do you understand how addiction works?
|
| I'd bet a lot of money that they saved some number of
| lives by catching him. He was engaging in an activity
| that had a high probability of resulting in some deaths.
| I can sell knives in a store, and I have a reasonable
| level of confidence that no one died because of those
| knives. Here, the probabilities are inverted.
| conductr wrote:
| How many deadly chemicals are in an average home? Every
| time I fill up my car with gas, I buy enough to commit
| dozens of cases of arson.
|
| Intent matters and there's no reason to believe he intended
| to harm anyone. I believe it's a crime and should be a
| felony but this sentence is a bit extreme in terms of
| punishment fitting the crime.
| Aurornis wrote:
| > Every time I fill up my car with gas, I buy enough to
| commit dozens of cases of arson.
|
| Did you read the link? They also found scales, baggies,
| and Carfentanil (a more potent version of fentanyl).
|
| Filling your car up with gas doesn't compare. A better
| analogy would be if you tried to fill up a 10,000 gallon
| tank of gasoline that you couldn't possibly use yourself,
| all while having a truck full of matches and explosives,
| and a map to a building with a big circle around it.
| conductr wrote:
| No evidence this guy was trying to start a massive
| explosion with a single target. Most evidence is that he
| was trying to start a lot of tiny fires just like I could
| with the 20 gallons of gas that's in my tank. Except, not
| even that because he was just reselling the fuel and the
| consumer gets to decide how big of a fire they want to
| create.
|
| Intent to distribute is a huge scam and calculates out to
| a unjustly long sentence for a lot of minor offenders.
| I'm not arguing it shouldn't be illegal or even tack on
| some extra time above just normal possession, but 15-30
| years is absurd for what this guy did in my opinion.
| Hamuko wrote:
| Gasoline isn't a controlled substance for one.
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| the conviction was literally for the intent to
| distribute; RTFM
| conductr wrote:
| I read it and I simply don't think intent to distribute
| should be synonymous with intent to kill. There are
| violent crimes with actual victims that serve less time
| than this. This is a mathematical calculation of damage
| that could have been done in worst possible scenario, no
| evidence of that scenario playing out at all.
|
| This math of weights and maximum hypothetical carnage
| produces very unfair sentencing.
| tshaddox wrote:
| I wonder what the sentencing guidelines are for possession
| of a firearm with enough ammunition to kill 300 people.
| croemer wrote:
| 3,000 not 300 if my maths are correct (and lethal dose)
| Muromec wrote:
| Sell controlled substances in a controlled way and people
| don't die. It was already figured out, but goes against
| beliefs of americans, as they can't then blame and jail
| people and have to instead help.
| bufferoverflow wrote:
| Decriminalization in Portugal and in Oregon ended up in
| disasters. Resulted in more drug addicts, more violent
| crime, more crazy behaviors, more people laying or
| crawling in the streets.
|
| https://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/the-hard-drug-
| decrimina...
| potato3732842 wrote:
| Unless you do something so heinous it captivates the public
| or have a bunch of priors the only crimes that reliably will
| put you away for that kind of time are ones that the
| government takes specific offense to. Usually that means
| ignoring their monopoly on violence but seeing as this guy is
| behind bars for dealing and not murder I'd bet he just got
| unlucky and happened to sell the dose that some more equal
| animal or their relative OD'd on.
| Aurornis wrote:
| > Wow, 15-30 years seems like an insane amount of time for
| drug possession.
|
| The sentence was for intent to distribute. It's an extremely
| potent substance. This would be like discovering someone had
| 30,000 pills. You can't really argue that it was for personal
| use at that point. They also found him in possession of
| carfentanil (a more potent version of fentanyl), scales,
| baggies, and other products. This looks like a very clear
| case of someone importing high-potency synthetic opioids to
| redistribute.
|
| High potency synthetic opioids are a high priority target for
| law enforcement. These are most often cut (diluted) and then
| sold to buyers expecting some other opioid product. As you
| might expect, perfectly diluting a 1mg dose of a powder into
| a 500mg - 1000mg pill form is extremely hard to do and
| there's a high risk of "hot spots" forming in certain pills
| (or sections of a powdered product). This results in a lot of
| serious overdoses.
|
| It's a severe problem right now. Most fentanyl overdoses are
| from users who thought they were taking some other drug. They
| might have even "tested" it before, but missed the hot spots.
| Reasoning wrote:
| I'll add on, he mentions in his blog that he was making
| "tens of thousands of dollars a week" selling drugs. He was
| not a small time dealer and certainly wasn't just buying
| drugs for himself.
|
| His current sentence also (15-30 years) isn't his first
| prison sentence. He was released and reoffended which
| absolutely contributed to the longer sentence.
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| in addition to the other comments, this was also not his
| first conviction. They get extremely punative.
| IncandescentGas wrote:
| Since the top comment seems to be judging the worthiness of
| this individual to work with databases after prison, for those
| considering working with or hiring someone with a criminal
| record, I'd beg you to consider:
|
| You're hiring the person as they are today, long after any
| punishment, rehabilitation, parold, probation, and personal
| growth. Not who they were at the time of past actions.
|
| Having your own mini trial, where you sit in judgement over the
| candidate, from your ignorant position of privilege, using
| whatever details you can dig up with google may be entertaining
| for you, but is tells you nothing of what kind of employee they
| might be. Your mock trial may be especially traumatic to endure
| for the candidate, because their side of the story is rarely
| included in any reporting you can dig up. Especially for those
| unfairly convicted.
|
| With everything going on today, do you really trust our justice
| system to be fair, especially to someone who is not a wealthy
| and connected straight white male?
|
| If you're only willing to give people a chance when you judge
| their offence to be trivial by your own ethics, you're not
| actually providing second chances for those that need it.
| croemer wrote:
| I'm not judging anything at all. What part of my comment
| makes you think I judge the worthiness? I just decided to
| share what the crime was since OP left it out.
|
| To make it unambiguous I added a prefix: "Great story, I wish
| this inspired more prisons around the world to follow suit."
| Hamuko wrote:
| Your comment doesn't seem applicable to this scenario since
| this is not about "work with databases after prison" or "long
| after any punishment, rehabilitation, parold, probation, and
| personal growth". Even the title says it: "from prison". This
| individual is actually still undergoing their punishment, not
| long after it.
| croemer wrote:
| Turns out TFA lies on his blog:
|
| > and some marijuana coming from california (the latter of
| which is what I am currently serving my time for right now).
| (https://pthorpe92.dev/intro/my-story/)
|
| He's downplaying his crime. It wasn't just Marijuana.
| Reasoning wrote:
| Definitely a manipulative framing on his part. He originally
| was convicted for MDMA and marijuana, was released on
| probation and then was convicted for synthetic opioids. He's
| probably serving time right now for the marijuana for
| breaking his probation but he's not in prison now because of
| it.
| ArthurStacks wrote:
| No doubt there will be plenty of suckers, like the companies
| involved, who buy all this and don't see it for what it is: A
| criminal playing people to try to find a way to get his sentence
| reduced or easier time inside
| bastawhiz wrote:
| Sorry, but this is a disgusting take. Addiction is well
| established as an illness. It's outright shameful to suggest
| that someone who is going through recovery is purely doing it
| as a grift. What you're suggesting is that we can't trust that
| rehabilitation is possible or reasonable, which is a deeply
| cruel prospect.
| ArthurStacks wrote:
| And I'm sure if you had your way the prisons would be empty
| of anyone convicted of a drug related crime because 'they and
| their terribly sad addictions/illnesses are the real victims'
|
| Theyre in prison as a punishment for crimes
| glommer wrote:
| Preston has never asked for anyone's sympathy or
| understanding about his past crimes. If you read his stuff,
| he owns it fully, is incredibly sorry. He's the first to
| admit that what he did had very real consequences.
| bastawhiz wrote:
| To what end? To spend tax dollars? To make them rot away
| indefinitely?
|
| What good are we doing to society if we are keeping
| rehabilitated individuals locked up at taxpayer expense?
| There's no objectively correct amount of punishment. The
| correct amount of punishment _should_ be the smallest
| amount of time necessary to be confident that the criminal
| won 't cause more harm to society, especially when the
| crime was committed as the result of a treatable illness
| like addiction.
| croemer wrote:
| Rehabilitation is great. But you might have the wrong idea
| about the crime.
|
| It wasn't just addiction. He had enough U-47700 for 30,000
| trips (30 thousand). See
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44291172
| bastawhiz wrote:
| I'm not disputing that. But someone doesn't simply decide
| to acquire that much of a very serious drug with a sound
| mind. Is it fair to treat a crime the same for two people
| if one person is suffering from schizophrenia and the other
| is of sound mind?
|
| Simply saying "you did a terrible thing, and that's
| irredeemable" isn't useful to society. What good are you
| doing if you've rehabilitated the criminal? You're just
| spending tax dollars on principle. It's cruel and
| unproductive.
| rqmedes wrote:
| 100%
| ConanRus wrote:
| Prison Architect ITT
| ahahs wrote:
| I think this guy went to prison and realized how much easier it
| is to sit down and work instead of dealing drugs.
| jiveturkey wrote:
| > preferring instead to spend ~15+ hours a day on projects and
| open source contributions.
|
| This makes it clear it's not just that the prison provides such
| opportunities, but that inmates are motivated to take advantage
| of such. Too many fully law abiding folks spend 15+ hours of
| screen time just doom scrolling.
|
| There's a real lesson here for similar community services. For
| folks whose upbringing maybe doesn't afford such advantages, if
| services can be available where students can find reprieve from
| harsh daily life and be (very) modestly taken care of, I can see
| value. At a much lesser level, I benefited enormously from
| school, church, and community services where I could apply
| myself, things my family could never afford. So, like school
| lunches but for practical developer education.
| pastage wrote:
| I have done 90 hours weeks when I was younger, I really hope he
| manages to get some exercise and down time. It is not healthy to
| work that much even if it escapism from a worse situation.
| einpoklum wrote:
| > _I 've spent just under 10 years of my life in Prison (all for
| non-violent drug crimes.) _
|
| (sigh) another victim of the US obsession with sticking as many
| people as possible in prison. I wish the regime is overthrown
| somehow and he can get released.
| djoldman wrote:
| I fear that the distinctly American emphasis on personal
| independence and deprioritization of root causes has led to our
| persistent and failed war on drugs.
|
| Unfortunately, many of the laws written and policies enacted
| presume an idealistic fantasy where humans are much more
| rationally acting, thoughtful, and informed than they really are.
|
| The clearest example of this is raising statutory penalties from
| "many years" to "many many years" in prison. What is this
| supposed to achieve? Do people think that folks out there:
|
| 1. know the laws well enough to know how many years they'll get
| for the crime they're about to commit?
|
| 2. (and if knowledgable about penalty changes) think, "oh well I
| would have done X and risked many years in prison but now that
| it's many many years, I won't" ?
|
| If huge prison sentences and massive resources spent on crime
| detection+ enforcement were the answer, America wouldn't have an
| illegal drug problem.
| ElijahLynn wrote:
| I definitely cried reading this. Happy tears.
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