8 ms·

I don't understand why we let people out of prison if we aren't prepared to actually let them out of prison. I'm not really bleeding heart about this, I'd be f

I don't understand why we let people out of prison if we aren't prepared to actually let them out of prison. I'm not really bleeding heart about this, I'd be fine with any murder of this sort meaning life in prison. What does not make sense is letting someone out and then not treating them as normal humans again. It only encourages people to revert to evil.

subroutine 9y ago
Some quotes from the article makes it seem like they are more worried about the potential social and political backlash, than their personal beliefs on whether she has been rehabilitated. > "We didn’t have some preconceived idea about crucifying Michelle,” said John Stauffer, one of the two American studies professors. “But frankly, we knew that anyone could just punch her crime into Google, and Fox News would probably say that P.C. liberal Harvard gave 200 grand of funding to a child murderer, who also happened to be a minority. I mean, c’mon.” This is so cowardly.
- Keeeeeeeks 9y ago
  Along these lines, I think it was an attempt to not piss off potential donors. "I donate a quarter million a year and you give it to a black who killed her own son? Guess Yale could use a new building with my name on it" Still though, the US needs to have a good hard look at de-monetizing the prison industrial complex, humanizing post-incarcerated people, and disassembling the economic incentives to use the 13th amendment for disenfranchisement.
  - danso 9y ago
    But there are potential donors who deeply care about reforming criminal justice. The Koch brothers and the Deasons, for instance: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/30/opinion/ruining-lives-with-criminal-justice.html https://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/30/opinion/ruining-lives-wit... I realize the op-ed linked to above mentions legislation to end harsh punishment/disclosure rules for first-time non-violent offenders, but that's a reasonable initial milestone in reforming the justice system to be more rehabilitative. You can read more about their stances as advocated by Freedom Partners, the nonprofit that they founded and fund: https://freedompartners.org/issues/ https://freedompartners.org/issues/ Including this statement of support for VA governor candidate Ed Gillespie's criminal justice reform plan: https://freedompartners.org/press/holden-keeping-virginia-safe-providing-second-chance-and-making-the-system-more-just-are-at-the-heart-of-ed-gillespies-criminal-justice-reform-plan/ https://freedompartners.org/press/holden-keeping-virginia-sa... https://edforvirginia.com/criminaljustice/ https://edforvirginia.com/criminaljustice/ > “Virginia’s criminal justice system should be just, fair and redeeming. Law enforcement and justice should be administered fairly, and when Virginians exit the criminal justice system they should leave more prepared to live a full and contributing life in society. “ – Ed Gillespie
- throwaway287391 9y ago
  ... wow. I'm pretty shocked that a Harvard prof would admit to overturning someone's admission due in part to them being a racial minority, fearing the prospect of bad press from Fox News. Fox has really won the culture wars in a major way.
  - fhood 9y ago
    Why would Harvard actually care what Fox news thinks? Honest question.
    - spaceseaman 9y ago
      What do you think most of their donors watch, practically exclusively? Gotta make sure Johnny's not going to one of those SJW / safe space / PC / ... colleges like Yale! They're trying to avoid being part of Fox's whole anti-University arc this season.
    - Balgair 9y ago
      I was going to say something more 2015-ish, but with Donny's revealing of the wizard behind the curtain, yeah, you are right. Why do they care? I mean, they have enough cash in the bank to never let another student in for 200 years, and still be just fine. They have more good-will built up than anything else out there. They make advances in human knowledge comparable to almost nothing else besides another University. They have it all. So what could they want then? The only thing I can come up with is that they do think Fox would be correct in that assumption. They aren't worried about the money. Maybe they are worried about the woman herself and just are using the Fox stuff as cover? Nothing else really makes sense.
      - anigbrowl 9y ago
        The idea that sufficient resources mean you can just ignore politics has historically proven inaccurate.
    - lucozade 9y ago
      They don't want to be a negative target of DC. DC is currently Republican led and Republican politicians most definitely care what Fox news thinks. My guess is that the profs saw this as such a perfect shitstorm that, if it becomes a major story, DC would feel they have no choice but to do something about it.
- Geekette 9y ago
  Worse, he's apparently a scholar on antislavery and professor of African American Studies, i.e. a demographic supposedly more cognizant of barriers minorities face and importance of their getting opportunities like admission to Harvard.
  - pc86 9y ago
    I imagine there are plenty of very highly qualified scholars who, to use the professor's own words, "happen to be a minority," that never killed their infant child.
    - Geekette 9y ago
      Plenty of very highly qualified scholars who didn't grow up in the context that she did, whose backgrounds aren't comparable. Doesn't make her less deserving of this opportunity; she committed a crime and did her time, she's allowed to move on.
      - pc86 9y ago
        She absolutely is and should not have any impediments from the state in moving on with her life. Private individuals and institutions are under no such obligation, though.
        orbat 9y ago
        Claiming that private institutions aren't under any obligations for reasonable conduct seems to be a very uniquely American ideation; that somehow only the government is bound by higher ideals, and businesses can do what they please with whoever they please as long as someone signs a contract
        Geekette 9y ago
        Nobody's disputing the rights of private institutions but everybody has a right to express their distaste over their actions, especially when it is arrived at in a manner which runs against what such institutions claim to stand for.
kbart 9y ago
Agreed. Also, murdering a 4 year old child should lead to lifelong sentence in any case imho, so sorry, no sympathies here.
- Geekette 9y ago
  She got pregnant at 14 after being raped by a high-school senior, suffered domestic violence from her mother and afterwards in multiple group homes and foster families she was placed in, culminating in a psychological breakdown. Given her state of mind then, this isn't directly comparable to other cases of cold, premeditated murder.
  - frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago
    I don't think you can claim that. Prior abuse does not preclude cold or premeditated murder. In fact we don't have much details at all except that she beat her son, left him alone for several days and then buried the body later. That's reprehensible enough for me to say that I wouldn't want to work with her.
    - Geekette 9y ago
      The post states she had a suffered psychological breakdown at that time, which clearly indicates she wasn't in the right frame of mind. It also outlined how the patterns of abuse she grew up with contributed to how she treated the child generally; its what she'd learned and knew no better.
      - frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago
        I think we're trying to extrapolate too much from too little information. However, I do believe in some minimum level of culpability for your actions. Serial killers aren't excused for their often terrible childhoods. I think child killers belong in the same box. The idea that anyone in modern society "didn't know better" than to beat their small child then leave them for days strikes me as farcical.
Brahma111 9y ago
And that was like 2 decades ago when she was mentally immature. Not that what she did was justifiable under any circumstance, but for heaven's sake her term was reduced by 30 yrs. Harvard has really goofed it up if this story blows up.
schmidty 9y ago
There is no "we" as you mention. Everyone is an individual with different values and judgments. How could you expect the entirety of the human race to treat someones actions in a consistent way? It simply is going against reality.
- JustSomeNobody 9y ago
  This is not true. We live in a society with rules and laws on how to treat people. If the law says someone goes to prison for murder then "we" as a society have agreed to this. If everyone lived by different laws, we'd be in chaos.
  - VMG 9y ago
    Only when these rules come into conflict. People can have different preferences, include preferences about with whom to associate or not. Allowing for that is a necessity for living in a free society.
  - schmidty 9y ago
    What exactly isn't true about my statement. You are saying people are not individuals with their own preferences? Sure you can draw mental or geographical lines around people. And then try to apply laws to them. But at the end of the day there are still people in those lines choosing to follow, or not follow the laws in various ways. And people treating people differently even while following those laws.
lucozade 9y ago
To my mind, it's not completely unreasonable to argue that the constraints on the state do not necessarily have to be mirrored as constraints on individuals or companies/institutions. It seems to be similar to the freedom of speech debate regarding the Daily Stormer. The debate largely revolved around whether a company should be able to refuse their business because they found it objectionable even while conceding it was legal. This is similar I think. From the state's perspective this person has served her time and is free to go about her business. But an institution still finds her objectionable and has refused her admission. Personally, I'm somewhat conflicted. I would imagine I would find it very difficult to have a professional relationship with this person and, if I was responsible for hiring, would definitely be concerned that hiring her may not be net positive for my organisation. Equally, I'm very aware that this line of reasoning has been used to prolong some very nasty behaviours and I may well be perpetuating one of them.
- appleiigs 9y ago
  She would be a net positive for your organization, however, that's a low hurdle. When there is a good amount of competition for hiring or admittance, it would be hard to justify hiring/admitting her when you can find someone with similar skills without the time in prison.
  - zhengyi13 9y ago
    I find such justification easy. Is the net social gain of hiring someone working towards or through rehabilitation greater than that of hiring someone who's not faced with that burden? In other words, am I helping reduce recidivism? I think so.
    - lucozade 9y ago
      Maybe. If a kid fucked up and has shown maturity then I would completely agree. It's both beneficial to them and to society. For the person in the article, it's not that clear. There's no reason to believe she'll repeat the heinous crime but the effect of her presence in the organisation could be very disruptive. I wouldn't say it is easy.
roel_v 9y ago
The incarceration is the punishment handed out by the state, the state being a proxy of 'society'. There is however no moral obligation for any citizen to take over the stance of that 'abstract society' that a prisoner can be released for whatever reason. In other words, everybody has to right to associate or not with who they want. The extreme example here is that the victim of child molestation at the hand of a parent has no obligation whatsoever to resume contact with the perpetrator after release from prison. On a meta note, I would be a lot more sympathetic to many 'causes' if only they would choose less reprehensible poster children for their campaigns. I mean, I'm all for prison reform and rehabilitation, but come on: "In a memo to university administrators, these professors said the admissions dean had told them Jones’s selection would be reviewed by the president and provost, and questioned whether she had minimized her crime “to the point of misrepresentation.”" "The boy died in 1992 in circumstances that remain unclear; the body was never found." "At her trial, a former friend testified that Jones confessed to having beaten the boy and then leaving him alone for days in their apartment, eventually returning to find him dead in his bedroom.". Campaigning on the basis of a child murderer who abused a 4 year old and let him starve to death not being admitted to a top university being 'unfair'? Yeah, good luck with that.
- sgift 9y ago
  > The incarceration is the punishment handed out by the state, the state being a proxy of 'society'. There is however no moral obligation for any citizen to take over the stance of that 'abstract society' that a prisoner can be released for whatever reason. While true this is a reflection on society itself. Some people learn this the hard way, when they end on the wrong side of it and then ask "why do people not forgive?" > On a meta note, I would be a lot more sympathetic to many 'causes' if only they would choose less reprehensible poster children for their campaigns. > Campaigning on the basis of a child murderer who abused a 4 year old and let him starve to death not being admitted to a top university being 'unfair'? Yeah, good luck with that. You either stand for your principles in all circumstances or none. If they only count for 'easy' cases they are worthless anyway.
  - roel_v 9y ago
Broken_Hippo 9y ago
Because keeping someone in prison for life after a fairly minor felony, committed when someone is 18 or 19 (and possibly still in high school) seems cruel and unusual punishment. The current system lets the government not take the blame for the lifetime of punishment the person might face. Of course, in my eyes the government still takes the blame for such things.
- biotech 9y ago
  How is murdering a 4 year old child a "fairly minor" felony??
  - Broken_Hippo 9y ago
    That in itself isn't. But we do jail folks for years over drug charges, don't we? And let that follow them around for the rest of their lives? It can disqualify you from a lot of stuff. It doesn't matter what the crime is when folks are wondering why we let folks out of jail at all. It isn't so much the crime that was committed at that point.
    - biotech 9y ago
      I think it absolutely matters what the charge is. In this case, we are talking about someone who murdered a 4 year old. I don't have too much sympathy for someone who does this. If you want to talk about people who are in jail for drug charges, that is a different discussion entirely.
wallace_f 9y ago
Going against the herd here and going to say that people are losing their minds. If I intentionally, over days and weeks, repeatedly beat, tortured and murdered a defenseless child? I would do the honor of killing myself so someone else wouldn't be burdened with it. It is simply horrendous and unacceptable. The amount of degeneracy we're being taught to accept, and even appreciate, is starting to be awful. Her research was even along those same lines: a meta project on the value created by incarcerated researchers. I'm not saying she shouldn't still have her civil and constitutional rights. She certainly shouldn't ever be subject to abuse or cruel and unusual punishment. But should she be represented at our most esteemed institutions? Come on. What about Ross Ulbricht? Snowden? Aaron Swartz? There are countless people who have done nothing but go to great lengths to give people liberties, and yet effectively serve life sentences for doing nothing wrong? Why focus so much energy on promoting legitimate child murderers? It makes absolutely no sense to me. If anything, the energy spent here could be better spent elsewhere.
- TheAdamAndChe 9y ago
  At the same time, I see why it was done. Should someone who happened to go to prison have limited prospects for the rest of their life? Should someone who happened to get arrested for drugs need to work hard labor for the rest of their life to survive?
  - wallace_f 9y ago
    There is nothing wrong with choosing to put chemicals in your body as long as you aren't hurting anybody else in the process. There is something horribly wrong with torture and murder of a 4 year old. How many good and decent people work hard labor most of their lives simply because they were born on the wrong side of some arbitrarily drawn border? Because they happen to be born into a world where their intellectual capabilities are relatively low? I have no sympathy for this child murderer for not getting into Harvard.
    - CossieRay 9y ago
      At what point will she simply be referred to as Michelle Jones as opposed to "this child murderer"? It's just not right to blatantly disregard all her twenty years of transformation
_dps 9y ago
I think it's a stretch to call denial of entry to one of the most exclusive institutions of the world as "not treating them as normal humans". Reading between the lines from the text here (which I admit is speculation), I think there's substantial chance the admissions office feels there may be a shoe yet to drop (note that her son's body was never found... which based on the text of the article is likely to mean she never told the authorities where it was, which raises questions about what else might have happened). They specifically cite the possibility that her description of her crime amounted to deception. Between that and the possibility of more secret land mines that might reveal she has done something even worse (i.e. actively killed the child), I think it's totally reasonable for the administration to say "No thanks, we're full to the gills with no-risk applicants." No one is entitled to be selected for graduate study at Harvard. And she seems to be doing fine with other offers. So I think as a society we've done reasonably well in giving her a chance at a new life.
- killjoywashere 9y ago
  Yeah, this seems to be as much about the Marshall Project drumming up awareness as anything. Submarine story of a social-justice kind. Whatever.
- anigbrowl 9y ago
  there's substantial chance the admissions office feels there may be a shoe yet to drop I'm not inclined to give that possibility much weight compared to the input of the prosecutor and the parole board that know her case in depth. It's easy to make up reasons.
RcouF1uZ4gsC 9y ago
From the article she was essentially sentenced to life in prison as she was given a 50 year sentence. The justice system actually brought this about by releasing her after 20 years or 40% of her sentence. There may be a discrepancy between what society sees as a just punishment and what the justice system feels it can impose.
alexashka 9y ago
Harvard is for rich kids, and some extremely capable, to keep up appearances of 'we're not just a rich kids club, we're a real university', plus to make sure there's at least a few intelligent people running things in the long run. The extremely capable do all the work, while the rich get to intermingle. The extremely capable of course are carefully vetted to be fully indoctrinated in the system - you have to want to be part of the rich club - a true capitalist. Not only is this lady out of prison not interested in being part of the rich club, nobody in the rich club wants her to be in! Hence, she's not welcome at Harvard. Of course Harvard can't come out and say that, but they're well versed in doublespeak [0], and this'll soon be forgotten. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doublespeak https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doublespeak
- johan_larson 9y ago
  I wonder. Harvard certainly admits some on the basis of criteria other than academic merit. It favours legacy students. It gives an advantage to historically mistreated minorities. And it wouldn't be surprising if it tried to curry favour with the powerful by admitting their less-than-brilliant offspring, too. But even with all that, my impression is that the bar is still pretty darn high. Even the stupid Harvard grads are pretty capable. Is that true? Any Harvard alums or faculty want to speak for or against this notion?
  - alexashka 9y ago
    You're being incredibly naive if you think folks from Harvard bother with reading HackerNews. This place is for suckers, real capitalists read Forbes :)
kafkaesq 9y ago
What does not make sense is letting someone out and then not treating them as normal humans again. Because the current criminal "justice" system has very little to do with actually preventing and helping society recover from the effects of criminal behavior. It's about generating false appearances of "retribution" (or making people "pay" for their crimes, whatever that means), and the (deeply) false appearance of some kind of "moral balance" in the world, generally. And reinforcing systems of (low-key) terror and control on the general population. It only encourages people to revert to evil. You got it. That may not be the stated goal of the current system. But it's certainly one of its inevitable outcomes. The tragedy is that it's not just the offenders - or even those wrongly accused - who suffer from (and become morally corrupted by) the current order. It's all of us.
santoshalper 9y ago
I agree. She beat a child to death. Instinctively, we all know she is a monster - even if she was created by her upbringing - and she probably should never have been let out of prison. There is no rehabilitation for what she did.
- sctb 9y ago
  Please don't repeat this all over the thread. High-energy, low-information repetition does not help take discussions where we want them to go. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
new299 9y ago
I'm not sure I understand why it doesn't make sense. Punishment/prison can serve a few purposes: 1. To serve as a deterrent to others. 2. To remove an individual from society, so they can't cause harm. 3. To reform an individual. Given this: The system might think that 20 years in prison is a sufficient deterrent. That by removing the individual from society during this time period, they have sufficiently safeguarded society. That it is enough time to reform an individual to the degree that they don't pose significant risk. Given the above, I don't see why /every/ crime might result in individuals released into society being given the full rights of normal citizens. For example, you might want to continuously monitor their progress, or not allow them to enter certain occupations (such as child care) in order to continue to safeguard society... Certain crimes, will no doubt limit your future activities permanently. But that alone doesn't seem like a reason to keep people in prison for ever. The hope is that they might be able to find some niche in which they can make a viable life for themselves in society perhaps.
wallace_f 9y ago
>letting someone out and then not treating them as normal humans again. It only encourages people to revert to evil. What do you think of people expelled from institutions for non-criminal reasons? Trump-supporting Andrew Torba for instance, who has been kicked out of Y-Combinator, and from the Google Play and Apple stores, for his politics. Should he get a life sentence?

subroutine 9y ago

Some quotes from the article makes it seem like they are more worried about the potential social and political backlash, than their personal beliefs on whether she has been rehabilitated. > "We didn’t have some preconceived idea about crucifying Michelle,” said John Stauffer, one of the two American studies professors. “But frankly, we knew that anyone could just punch her crime into Google, and Fox News would probably say that P.C. liberal Harvard gave 200 grand of funding to a child murderer, who also happened to be a minority. I mean, c’mon.” This is so cowardly.

Keeeeeeeks 9y ago
Along these lines, I think it was an attempt to not piss off potential donors. "I donate a quarter million a year and you give it to a black who killed her own son? Guess Yale could use a new building with my name on it" Still though, the US needs to have a good hard look at de-monetizing the prison industrial complex, humanizing post-incarcerated people, and disassembling the economic incentives to use the 13th amendment for disenfranchisement.
- danso 9y ago
  But there are potential donors who deeply care about reforming criminal justice. The Koch brothers and the Deasons, for instance: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/30/opinion/ruining-lives-with-criminal-justice.html https://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/30/opinion/ruining-lives-wit... I realize the op-ed linked to above mentions legislation to end harsh punishment/disclosure rules for first-time non-violent offenders, but that's a reasonable initial milestone in reforming the justice system to be more rehabilitative. You can read more about their stances as advocated by Freedom Partners, the nonprofit that they founded and fund: https://freedompartners.org/issues/ https://freedompartners.org/issues/ Including this statement of support for VA governor candidate Ed Gillespie's criminal justice reform plan: https://freedompartners.org/press/holden-keeping-virginia-safe-providing-second-chance-and-making-the-system-more-just-are-at-the-heart-of-ed-gillespies-criminal-justice-reform-plan/ https://freedompartners.org/press/holden-keeping-virginia-sa... https://edforvirginia.com/criminaljustice/ https://edforvirginia.com/criminaljustice/ > “Virginia’s criminal justice system should be just, fair and redeeming. Law enforcement and justice should be administered fairly, and when Virginians exit the criminal justice system they should leave more prepared to live a full and contributing life in society. “ – Ed Gillespie
throwaway287391 9y ago
... wow. I'm pretty shocked that a Harvard prof would admit to overturning someone's admission due in part to them being a racial minority, fearing the prospect of bad press from Fox News. Fox has really won the culture wars in a major way.
- fhood 9y ago
  Why would Harvard actually care what Fox news thinks? Honest question.
  - spaceseaman 9y ago
    What do you think most of their donors watch, practically exclusively? Gotta make sure Johnny's not going to one of those SJW / safe space / PC / ... colleges like Yale! They're trying to avoid being part of Fox's whole anti-University arc this season.
  - Balgair 9y ago
    I was going to say something more 2015-ish, but with Donny's revealing of the wizard behind the curtain, yeah, you are right. Why do they care? I mean, they have enough cash in the bank to never let another student in for 200 years, and still be just fine. They have more good-will built up than anything else out there. They make advances in human knowledge comparable to almost nothing else besides another University. They have it all. So what could they want then? The only thing I can come up with is that they do think Fox would be correct in that assumption. They aren't worried about the money. Maybe they are worried about the woman herself and just are using the Fox stuff as cover? Nothing else really makes sense.
    - anigbrowl 9y ago
      The idea that sufficient resources mean you can just ignore politics has historically proven inaccurate.
  - lucozade 9y ago
    They don't want to be a negative target of DC. DC is currently Republican led and Republican politicians most definitely care what Fox news thinks. My guess is that the profs saw this as such a perfect shitstorm that, if it becomes a major story, DC would feel they have no choice but to do something about it.
Geekette 9y ago
Worse, he's apparently a scholar on antislavery and professor of African American Studies, i.e. a demographic supposedly more cognizant of barriers minorities face and importance of their getting opportunities like admission to Harvard.
- pc86 9y ago
  I imagine there are plenty of very highly qualified scholars who, to use the professor's own words, "happen to be a minority," that never killed their infant child.
  - Geekette 9y ago
    Plenty of very highly qualified scholars who didn't grow up in the context that she did, whose backgrounds aren't comparable. Doesn't make her less deserving of this opportunity; she committed a crime and did her time, she's allowed to move on.
    - pc86 9y ago
      She absolutely is and should not have any impediments from the state in moving on with her life. Private individuals and institutions are under no such obligation, though.
      - orbat 9y ago
        Claiming that private institutions aren't under any obligations for reasonable conduct seems to be a very uniquely American ideation; that somehow only the government is bound by higher ideals, and businesses can do what they please with whoever they please as long as someone signs a contract
      - Geekette 9y ago
        Nobody's disputing the rights of private institutions but everybody has a right to express their distaste over their actions, especially when it is arrived at in a manner which runs against what such institutions claim to stand for.

kbart 9y ago

Agreed. Also, murdering a 4 year old child should lead to lifelong sentence in any case imho, so sorry, no sympathies here.

Geekette 9y ago
She got pregnant at 14 after being raped by a high-school senior, suffered domestic violence from her mother and afterwards in multiple group homes and foster families she was placed in, culminating in a psychological breakdown. Given her state of mind then, this isn't directly comparable to other cases of cold, premeditated murder.
- frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago
  I don't think you can claim that. Prior abuse does not preclude cold or premeditated murder. In fact we don't have much details at all except that she beat her son, left him alone for several days and then buried the body later. That's reprehensible enough for me to say that I wouldn't want to work with her.
  - Geekette 9y ago
    The post states she had a suffered psychological breakdown at that time, which clearly indicates she wasn't in the right frame of mind. It also outlined how the patterns of abuse she grew up with contributed to how she treated the child generally; its what she'd learned and knew no better.
    - frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago
      I think we're trying to extrapolate too much from too little information. However, I do believe in some minimum level of culpability for your actions. Serial killers aren't excused for their often terrible childhoods. I think child killers belong in the same box. The idea that anyone in modern society "didn't know better" than to beat their small child then leave them for days strikes me as farcical.

Brahma111 9y ago

And that was like 2 decades ago when she was mentally immature. Not that what she did was justifiable under any circumstance, but for heaven's sake her term was reduced by 30 yrs. Harvard has really goofed it up if this story blows up.

schmidty 9y ago

There is no "we" as you mention. Everyone is an individual with different values and judgments. How could you expect the entirety of the human race to treat someones actions in a consistent way? It simply is going against reality.

JustSomeNobody 9y ago
This is not true. We live in a society with rules and laws on how to treat people. If the law says someone goes to prison for murder then "we" as a society have agreed to this. If everyone lived by different laws, we'd be in chaos.
- VMG 9y ago
  Only when these rules come into conflict. People can have different preferences, include preferences about with whom to associate or not. Allowing for that is a necessity for living in a free society.
- schmidty 9y ago
  What exactly isn't true about my statement. You are saying people are not individuals with their own preferences? Sure you can draw mental or geographical lines around people. And then try to apply laws to them. But at the end of the day there are still people in those lines choosing to follow, or not follow the laws in various ways. And people treating people differently even while following those laws.

lucozade 9y ago

To my mind, it's not completely unreasonable to argue that the constraints on the state do not necessarily have to be mirrored as constraints on individuals or companies/institutions. It seems to be similar to the freedom of speech debate regarding the Daily Stormer. The debate largely revolved around whether a company should be able to refuse their business because they found it objectionable even while conceding it was legal. This is similar I think. From the state's perspective this person has served her time and is free to go about her business. But an institution still finds her objectionable and has refused her admission. Personally, I'm somewhat conflicted. I would imagine I would find it very difficult to have a professional relationship with this person and, if I was responsible for hiring, would definitely be concerned that hiring her may not be net positive for my organisation. Equally, I'm very aware that this line of reasoning has been used to prolong some very nasty behaviours and I may well be perpetuating one of them.

appleiigs 9y ago
She would be a net positive for your organization, however, that's a low hurdle. When there is a good amount of competition for hiring or admittance, it would be hard to justify hiring/admitting her when you can find someone with similar skills without the time in prison.
- zhengyi13 9y ago
  I find such justification easy. Is the net social gain of hiring someone working towards or through rehabilitation greater than that of hiring someone who's not faced with that burden? In other words, am I helping reduce recidivism? I think so.
  - lucozade 9y ago
    Maybe. If a kid fucked up and has shown maturity then I would completely agree. It's both beneficial to them and to society. For the person in the article, it's not that clear. There's no reason to believe she'll repeat the heinous crime but the effect of her presence in the organisation could be very disruptive. I wouldn't say it is easy.

roel_v 9y ago

The incarceration is the punishment handed out by the state, the state being a proxy of 'society'. There is however no moral obligation for any citizen to take over the stance of that 'abstract society' that a prisoner can be released for whatever reason. In other words, everybody has to right to associate or not with who they want. The extreme example here is that the victim of child molestation at the hand of a parent has no obligation whatsoever to resume contact with the perpetrator after release from prison. On a meta note, I would be a lot more sympathetic to many 'causes' if only they would choose less reprehensible poster children for their campaigns. I mean, I'm all for prison reform and rehabilitation, but come on: "In a memo to university administrators, these professors said the admissions dean had told them Jones’s selection would be reviewed by the president and provost, and questioned whether she had minimized her crime “to the point of misrepresentation.”" "The boy died in 1992 in circumstances that remain unclear; the body was never found." "At her trial, a former friend testified that Jones confessed to having beaten the boy and then leaving him alone for days in their apartment, eventually returning to find him dead in his bedroom.". Campaigning on the basis of a child murderer who abused a 4 year old and let him starve to death not being admitted to a top university being 'unfair'? Yeah, good luck with that.

sgift 9y ago
> The incarceration is the punishment handed out by the state, the state being a proxy of 'society'. There is however no moral obligation for any citizen to take over the stance of that 'abstract society' that a prisoner can be released for whatever reason. While true this is a reflection on society itself. Some people learn this the hard way, when they end on the wrong side of it and then ask "why do people not forgive?" > On a meta note, I would be a lot more sympathetic to many 'causes' if only they would choose less reprehensible poster children for their campaigns. > Campaigning on the basis of a child murderer who abused a 4 year old and let him starve to death not being admitted to a top university being 'unfair'? Yeah, good luck with that. You either stand for your principles in all circumstances or none. If they only count for 'easy' cases they are worthless anyway.
- roel_v 9y ago

Broken_Hippo 9y ago

Because keeping someone in prison for life after a fairly minor felony, committed when someone is 18 or 19 (and possibly still in high school) seems cruel and unusual punishment. The current system lets the government not take the blame for the lifetime of punishment the person might face. Of course, in my eyes the government still takes the blame for such things.

biotech 9y ago
How is murdering a 4 year old child a "fairly minor" felony??
- Broken_Hippo 9y ago
  That in itself isn't. But we do jail folks for years over drug charges, don't we? And let that follow them around for the rest of their lives? It can disqualify you from a lot of stuff. It doesn't matter what the crime is when folks are wondering why we let folks out of jail at all. It isn't so much the crime that was committed at that point.
  - biotech 9y ago
    I think it absolutely matters what the charge is. In this case, we are talking about someone who murdered a 4 year old. I don't have too much sympathy for someone who does this. If you want to talk about people who are in jail for drug charges, that is a different discussion entirely.

wallace_f 9y ago

Going against the herd here and going to say that people are losing their minds. If I intentionally, over days and weeks, repeatedly beat, tortured and murdered a defenseless child? I would do the honor of killing myself so someone else wouldn't be burdened with it. It is simply horrendous and unacceptable. The amount of degeneracy we're being taught to accept, and even appreciate, is starting to be awful. Her research was even along those same lines: a meta project on the value created by incarcerated researchers. I'm not saying she shouldn't still have her civil and constitutional rights. She certainly shouldn't ever be subject to abuse or cruel and unusual punishment. But should she be represented at our most esteemed institutions? Come on. What about Ross Ulbricht? Snowden? Aaron Swartz? There are countless people who have done nothing but go to great lengths to give people liberties, and yet effectively serve life sentences for doing nothing wrong? Why focus so much energy on promoting legitimate child murderers? It makes absolutely no sense to me. If anything, the energy spent here could be better spent elsewhere.

TheAdamAndChe 9y ago
At the same time, I see why it was done. Should someone who happened to go to prison have limited prospects for the rest of their life? Should someone who happened to get arrested for drugs need to work hard labor for the rest of their life to survive?
- wallace_f 9y ago
  There is nothing wrong with choosing to put chemicals in your body as long as you aren't hurting anybody else in the process. There is something horribly wrong with torture and murder of a 4 year old. How many good and decent people work hard labor most of their lives simply because they were born on the wrong side of some arbitrarily drawn border? Because they happen to be born into a world where their intellectual capabilities are relatively low? I have no sympathy for this child murderer for not getting into Harvard.
  - CossieRay 9y ago
    At what point will she simply be referred to as Michelle Jones as opposed to "this child murderer"? It's just not right to blatantly disregard all her twenty years of transformation

_dps 9y ago

I think it's a stretch to call denial of entry to one of the most exclusive institutions of the world as "not treating them as normal humans". Reading between the lines from the text here (which I admit is speculation), I think there's substantial chance the admissions office feels there may be a shoe yet to drop (note that her son's body was never found... which based on the text of the article is likely to mean she never told the authorities where it was, which raises questions about what else might have happened). They specifically cite the possibility that her description of her crime amounted to deception. Between that and the possibility of more secret land mines that might reveal she has done something even worse (i.e. actively killed the child), I think it's totally reasonable for the administration to say "No thanks, we're full to the gills with no-risk applicants." No one is entitled to be selected for graduate study at Harvard. And she seems to be doing fine with other offers. So I think as a society we've done reasonably well in giving her a chance at a new life.

killjoywashere 9y ago
Yeah, this seems to be as much about the Marshall Project drumming up awareness as anything. Submarine story of a social-justice kind. Whatever.
anigbrowl 9y ago
there's substantial chance the admissions office feels there may be a shoe yet to drop I'm not inclined to give that possibility much weight compared to the input of the prosecutor and the parole board that know her case in depth. It's easy to make up reasons.

RcouF1uZ4gsC 9y ago

From the article she was essentially sentenced to life in prison as she was given a 50 year sentence. The justice system actually brought this about by releasing her after 20 years or 40% of her sentence. There may be a discrepancy between what society sees as a just punishment and what the justice system feels it can impose.

alexashka 9y ago

Harvard is for rich kids, and some extremely capable, to keep up appearances of 'we're not just a rich kids club, we're a real university', plus to make sure there's at least a few intelligent people running things in the long run. The extremely capable do all the work, while the rich get to intermingle. The extremely capable of course are carefully vetted to be fully indoctrinated in the system - you have to want to be part of the rich club - a true capitalist. Not only is this lady out of prison not interested in being part of the rich club, nobody in the rich club wants her to be in! Hence, she's not welcome at Harvard. Of course Harvard can't come out and say that, but they're well versed in doublespeak [0], and this'll soon be forgotten. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doublespeak https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doublespeak

johan_larson 9y ago
I wonder. Harvard certainly admits some on the basis of criteria other than academic merit. It favours legacy students. It gives an advantage to historically mistreated minorities. And it wouldn't be surprising if it tried to curry favour with the powerful by admitting their less-than-brilliant offspring, too. But even with all that, my impression is that the bar is still pretty darn high. Even the stupid Harvard grads are pretty capable. Is that true? Any Harvard alums or faculty want to speak for or against this notion?
- alexashka 9y ago
  You're being incredibly naive if you think folks from Harvard bother with reading HackerNews. This place is for suckers, real capitalists read Forbes :)

kafkaesq 9y ago

What does not make sense is letting someone out and then not treating them as normal humans again. Because the current criminal "justice" system has very little to do with actually preventing and helping society recover from the effects of criminal behavior. It's about generating false appearances of "retribution" (or making people "pay" for their crimes, whatever that means), and the (deeply) false appearance of some kind of "moral balance" in the world, generally. And reinforcing systems of (low-key) terror and control on the general population. It only encourages people to revert to evil. You got it. That may not be the stated goal of the current system. But it's certainly one of its inevitable outcomes. The tragedy is that it's not just the offenders - or even those wrongly accused - who suffer from (and become morally corrupted by) the current order. It's all of us.

santoshalper 9y ago

I agree. She beat a child to death. Instinctively, we all know she is a monster - even if she was created by her upbringing - and she probably should never have been let out of prison. There is no rehabilitation for what she did.

sctb 9y ago
Please don't repeat this all over the thread. High-energy, low-information repetition does not help take discussions where we want them to go. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

new299 9y ago

I'm not sure I understand why it doesn't make sense. Punishment/prison can serve a few purposes: 1. To serve as a deterrent to others. 2. To remove an individual from society, so they can't cause harm. 3. To reform an individual. Given this: The system might think that 20 years in prison is a sufficient deterrent. That by removing the individual from society during this time period, they have sufficiently safeguarded society. That it is enough time to reform an individual to the degree that they don't pose significant risk. Given the above, I don't see why /every/ crime might result in individuals released into society being given the full rights of normal citizens. For example, you might want to continuously monitor their progress, or not allow them to enter certain occupations (such as child care) in order to continue to safeguard society... Certain crimes, will no doubt limit your future activities permanently. But that alone doesn't seem like a reason to keep people in prison for ever. The hope is that they might be able to find some niche in which they can make a viable life for themselves in society perhaps.

wallace_f 9y ago

>letting someone out and then not treating them as normal humans again. It only encourages people to revert to evil. What do you think of people expelled from institutions for non-criminal reasons? Trump-supporting Andrew Torba for instance, who has been kicked out of Y-Combinator, and from the Google Play and Apple stores, for his politics. Should he get a life sentence?