5 ms·

I know this is controversial, but the humane thing to do is to allow inmates unfettered access to the internet. Contrary to the orthodoxy on the matter, I asse

by jMyles 11y ago

I know this is controversial, but the humane thing to do is to allow inmates unfettered access to the internet. Contrary to the orthodoxy on the matter, I assert that this will reduce the strength and relevance of 'prison gangs.'

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
Someone1234 11y ago
Extremely controversial. Stopping prisoners from harassing their victims/witnesses against them/enemies or organising others to do their dirty work externally is already a massive problem. Prisons have the ability to listen to calls and read mail to try and curtail it. Giving them access to the internet makes all of this far easier, and monitoring it far more expensive. Not to mention that now they can use the internet to commit new crimes, and they have nothing better to do for the years or tens of years that they're sitting in a cell. I think giving them access to email is do-able, since that is no different in practice to physical letters. But giving them unrestricted access is a monitoring nightmare.
- mtrpcic 11y ago
  It's a lot easier to curtail things like this on the internet. It would be dirt easy to set it up to only allow certain content (let's call it "constructive" content, like Wikipedia, various news sources, etc.), while blocking content with specific keywords. Prisons have a finite amount of traffic, it's not like we're setting up the GFC. It's dirt simple and dirt cheap to set iptables up to handle this with the limited traffic coming out of a single prison. I could probably do it for less than $400 on some budget hardware, and have it be pretty solid/reliable. We should be allowing these people access to the information and knowledge so they can better themselves and broaden their horizons. We can do that while simultaneously blocking their ability to "contribute" to the global discussion if we need/want to.
  - bzbarsky 11y ago
    So I assume you mean allow Wikipedia but not makign edits to it (since those can be used to communicate to people on the outside, and preventing that is part of the stated goal)? And news sites but not the comments sections on those news sites? It sucks that this is even an issue, I agree. The proposal in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10434720 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10434720 would be interesting, if workable.
- jimrandomh 11y ago
  Read-only access, then: allow limited access without the ability to send messages, such as with software that disables the keyboard (but not the mouse) everywhere except the address bar, combined with monitoring.
  - smt88 11y ago
    "Read-only" access to the internet is impossible. Theoretically, a GET request is only supposed to retrieve data, but it can be (and sometimes is) also used to write data. There's no way for a screening algorithm to know the difference.
    - JupiterMoon 11y ago
      Pretty easy for wikipedia. Just route through tor...
    - claar 11y ago
      And that's without getting creative -- think Morse code via the refresh button, or specific-time-of-day page loads to specific links.
      - jimrandomh 11y ago
        Most prisoners are allowed phone calls. If it's reasonable to let them do that, then it's unreasonable to worry about refresh-button-morse-code messages.
        bzbarsky 11y ago
        They're allowed phone calls, but not unmonitored ones. As in, there is someone listening to what they say on the phone. That's part of the argument for why those phone calls are so expensive... Monitoring what someone does on the web would be possible too, of course. At least if you only let them do it for a few minutes at a time like a phone call. Monitoring someone for an hour or more of web browsing is likely to be deathly boring for the one doing the monitoring.
- devit 11y ago
  Just give access to those that have committed crimes which imply a low risk of such behavior, and take away the access in case of misbehavior. The vast majority of people aren't going to cause any issues.
- kuschku 11y ago
  Giving them access to the internet, while monitored live, is definitely possible. Even giving most prisoners full, unrestricted access is possible. Look at prisons in Europe (I’m thinking about Germany here) and you’ll see that it works.
raymondh 11y ago
More "naïve" than "controversial". Unfettered access ==> ability to run criminal business, organize groups, stalk victims, perpetrate fraud, etc.
- Spivak 11y ago
  Is there necessarily a problem with that? Their internet usage would be presumably heavily monitored and if they actually do those things then prosecute them for it and take their access away for some period of time. Restricting internet access like you're proposing is presuming their guilt and ruining it for the rest of the inmates.
tomjen3 11y ago
How will you ensure the internet is not used for crime, to harass or coerce witnesses or otherwise act against a need for resocialization?
- intopieces 11y ago
  They could employ internet filtering software used by China, Syria and Iran. Shouldn't be too difficult to get their hands on, considering it's made by an American company, Blue Coat Systems [0] [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Coat_Systems https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Coat_Systems
  - smt88 11y ago
    That software (whatever is used by China and Iran) is designed to tell the difference between parts of the web that are political and parts that aren't. It isn't designed to tell whether Inmate X is flooding Victim Y's Instagram with veiled threats. You'd have to create an incredibly complex system of rules for each individual inmate in order to do anything close to being effective, and even then, you'd require a level of AI sophistication that doesn't exist yet. It's just not possible right now.
    - intopieces 11y ago
      I'm not sure I follow why the system has to be so complex. Why not just block access to Instagram entirely? China does, and they seem to be satisfied with the results. I don't forsee prison inmates getting access to VPNs. As other users have proposed, a locked-down version (not 'unfettered') of the web seems like a reasonable compromise.
      - thaumasiotes 11y ago
        Because "you have unfettered access to the internet, except for the parts of the internet with other people" doesn't really work. It's so stupid that pretty much anyone who hears it will immediately realize it doesn't work. We're trying to prevent prisoners from communicating. The internet is a tool the sole purpose of which is communication. To be remotely plausible, you'd have to use a very restrictive whitelist approach, something like "you are allowed to send email (through the prison's forwarding server) to the following addresses".
Macsenour 11y ago
One word: Porn.
FussyZeus 11y ago
Better to just not put so many people in prison who don't belong there in the first place and keep the dangerous ones offline. Cheaper and better all around.

by jMyles 11y ago

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

Someone1234 11y ago

Extremely controversial. Stopping prisoners from harassing their victims/witnesses against them/enemies or organising others to do their dirty work externally is already a massive problem. Prisons have the ability to listen to calls and read mail to try and curtail it. Giving them access to the internet makes all of this far easier, and monitoring it far more expensive. Not to mention that now they can use the internet to commit new crimes, and they have nothing better to do for the years or tens of years that they're sitting in a cell. I think giving them access to email is do-able, since that is no different in practice to physical letters. But giving them unrestricted access is a monitoring nightmare.

mtrpcic 11y ago
It's a lot easier to curtail things like this on the internet. It would be dirt easy to set it up to only allow certain content (let's call it "constructive" content, like Wikipedia, various news sources, etc.), while blocking content with specific keywords. Prisons have a finite amount of traffic, it's not like we're setting up the GFC. It's dirt simple and dirt cheap to set iptables up to handle this with the limited traffic coming out of a single prison. I could probably do it for less than $400 on some budget hardware, and have it be pretty solid/reliable. We should be allowing these people access to the information and knowledge so they can better themselves and broaden their horizons. We can do that while simultaneously blocking their ability to "contribute" to the global discussion if we need/want to.
- bzbarsky 11y ago
  So I assume you mean allow Wikipedia but not makign edits to it (since those can be used to communicate to people on the outside, and preventing that is part of the stated goal)? And news sites but not the comments sections on those news sites? It sucks that this is even an issue, I agree. The proposal in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10434720 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10434720 would be interesting, if workable.
jimrandomh 11y ago
Read-only access, then: allow limited access without the ability to send messages, such as with software that disables the keyboard (but not the mouse) everywhere except the address bar, combined with monitoring.
- smt88 11y ago
  "Read-only" access to the internet is impossible. Theoretically, a GET request is only supposed to retrieve data, but it can be (and sometimes is) also used to write data. There's no way for a screening algorithm to know the difference.
  - JupiterMoon 11y ago
    Pretty easy for wikipedia. Just route through tor...
  - claar 11y ago
    And that's without getting creative -- think Morse code via the refresh button, or specific-time-of-day page loads to specific links.
    - jimrandomh 11y ago
      Most prisoners are allowed phone calls. If it's reasonable to let them do that, then it's unreasonable to worry about refresh-button-morse-code messages.
      - bzbarsky 11y ago
        They're allowed phone calls, but not unmonitored ones. As in, there is someone listening to what they say on the phone. That's part of the argument for why those phone calls are so expensive... Monitoring what someone does on the web would be possible too, of course. At least if you only let them do it for a few minutes at a time like a phone call. Monitoring someone for an hour or more of web browsing is likely to be deathly boring for the one doing the monitoring.
devit 11y ago
Just give access to those that have committed crimes which imply a low risk of such behavior, and take away the access in case of misbehavior. The vast majority of people aren't going to cause any issues.
kuschku 11y ago
Giving them access to the internet, while monitored live, is definitely possible. Even giving most prisoners full, unrestricted access is possible. Look at prisons in Europe (I’m thinking about Germany here) and you’ll see that it works.

raymondh 11y ago

More "naïve" than "controversial". Unfettered access ==> ability to run criminal business, organize groups, stalk victims, perpetrate fraud, etc.

Spivak 11y ago
Is there necessarily a problem with that? Their internet usage would be presumably heavily monitored and if they actually do those things then prosecute them for it and take their access away for some period of time. Restricting internet access like you're proposing is presuming their guilt and ruining it for the rest of the inmates.

tomjen3 11y ago

How will you ensure the internet is not used for crime, to harass or coerce witnesses or otherwise act against a need for resocialization?

intopieces 11y ago
They could employ internet filtering software used by China, Syria and Iran. Shouldn't be too difficult to get their hands on, considering it's made by an American company, Blue Coat Systems [0] [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Coat_Systems https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Coat_Systems
- smt88 11y ago
  That software (whatever is used by China and Iran) is designed to tell the difference between parts of the web that are political and parts that aren't. It isn't designed to tell whether Inmate X is flooding Victim Y's Instagram with veiled threats. You'd have to create an incredibly complex system of rules for each individual inmate in order to do anything close to being effective, and even then, you'd require a level of AI sophistication that doesn't exist yet. It's just not possible right now.
  - intopieces 11y ago
    I'm not sure I follow why the system has to be so complex. Why not just block access to Instagram entirely? China does, and they seem to be satisfied with the results. I don't forsee prison inmates getting access to VPNs. As other users have proposed, a locked-down version (not 'unfettered') of the web seems like a reasonable compromise.
    - thaumasiotes 11y ago
      Because "you have unfettered access to the internet, except for the parts of the internet with other people" doesn't really work. It's so stupid that pretty much anyone who hears it will immediately realize it doesn't work. We're trying to prevent prisoners from communicating. The internet is a tool the sole purpose of which is communication. To be remotely plausible, you'd have to use a very restrictive whitelist approach, something like "you are allowed to send email (through the prison's forwarding server) to the following addresses".

Macsenour 11y ago

One word: Porn.

FussyZeus 11y ago

Better to just not put so many people in prison who don't belong there in the first place and keep the dangerous ones offline. Cheaper and better all around.