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What Happens After Prisoners Learn to Code?

226 points by ForHackernews 7y ago

TulliusCicero 7y ago
> We need to applaud companies like Slack, but know that the nitty-gritty of human services—housing, health care, social support—which lots of nonprofits and public institutions are working on, the private sector has largely turned away from.” I mean, yeah? Those things sound like they’re precisely the kind of stuff that’s the domain of non-profits and the government. Why would we expect Slack or other tech companies to be helping random people with housing or social support? The private sector does help here, indirectly, with taxes that go to support such programs. And it’s the government that sets the tax rate and decides where revenue goes, not the private sector. You can blame the government, or the people who voted them in, but blaming Slack and co. is silly. It’s not their job, and it shouldn’t be: you don’t want the institutions with profit motive to be the ones handling charitable works. That’s part of the whole reason we have a government.
- AlexanderDhoore 7y ago
  You live in Munich. You think like a European. Left or right on the political spectrum, doesn't matter. What you said is generally accepted as "how it works" in Europe. Not so much in other places.
  - wayoutthere 7y ago
    The Color of Law by Richard Rothstein is an excellent history of how government policy was co-opted by white supremacists in America.
    - mynameishere 7y ago
      That would certainly explain mass immigration, affirmative action, hate crime laws, and endless wars for Israel. White supremacists being in charge.
  - TulliusCicero 7y ago
    I'm from the states, grew up Mormon, and have lived in Alabama and Utah, in addition to other regions. I'm very aware of how the American mindset works, thanks.
- DaiPlusPlus 7y ago
  Government is to govern. Government in most countries is driven by democratic mandates. Democratic mandates are set by influencers. The US’ key influencers are largely regressive and dishonest - and convince people to either not vote - or to vote against their personal best interests[1]. The US government does not currently have a democratic mandate to operate as the social welfare state. Consequently hundreds of thousands - if not millions - of people are immorally (by my own standards) disadvantaged and with no means or realistic opportunity to better themselves. So if a private company (or shareholders-forbid: a publicly traded company)’s leadership feels a moral obligation to help those left behind by the state - more power to them. Until the US truly embraces the “for the people” part of the “by the people, of the people, for the people” part of their unofficial motto it really is up to private entities to make-up the difference. [1] UPDATE: To clarify - I don't mean that I somehow know what's in someone else's best interests - because I don't - nor their exact reasons for voting for a particular party or candidate - but I mean that it's still possible to _objectively_ say that many people vote for ideological or sentimental reasons that appeal to them (which is part of democracy!) with - or without - having done (for example) a spreadsheet comparisons of how each candidate's manifesto politics would affect their cost of living, quality of living, economic expectations, and so on. I can respect someone voting against their interests for ideological or moral reasons - provided it's done with informed consent. I'm not convinced that most- or even a plurality - of GOP voters in recent US elections sat down and made a spreadsheet and said "yup - I'm okay with rising the cost of my individual health insurance provided it means I have the choice to refuse healthcare coverage" (and that is not a misrepresentation of the ACA and its opponents' stated positions). So by all means - vote against your own interests - provided you do it with informed consent - otherwise you _really_ are voting against your own interests.
  - jtbayly 7y ago
    > convince people to either not vote - or to vote against their personal best interests. I’ve seen this on HN several times, and it always cracks me up. The condescension isn't dripping. It’s running in torrents. You think the reason they won’t vote the way you want is because they don’t know what’s good for themselves. You might want to consider an alternate: they don’t want someone like you deciding what’s good for them and forcing it down their throats.
- pytester 7y ago
  >Why would we expect Slack or other tech companies to be helping random people with housing or social support? Yet they expect congratulations. Slack's selfish commercial interest is entirely aligned with hiring cheap developers, but, they put out a press release and the atlantic magazine took it up. I worked with a another charity that did a similar thing (not prisoners, but the underprivileged) and one of the companies we got some of them jobs at did the same thing. The company got some cheap developers, avoided commission on a recruitment agency and then proceeded to issue a press release patting themselves on the back.
  - tyingq 7y ago
    In this particular case, I think it's worth it even it is self serving. The advent of cheap online background checks has added to the already difficult task of getting a job if you're a felon. Any publicity around hiring them helps normalize it as expected.
    - pytester 7y ago
      This piece of PR fluff isn't helping regular ex cons get regular jobs in non-tight labor markets.
      - tyingq 7y ago
        If you look at what funded the article, at the bottom, I believe that's the intent. Though, yes, they did over gush about Slack.
    - robsinatra 7y ago
      I'm waiting for the moral grandstanders to take to social media and try to publicly shame companies for refusing to hire their trained ex-cons
  - TulliusCicero 7y ago
    They're playing the PR game and winning. I find it hard to blame them for that. Especially since they're not lying or doing anything explicitly harmful.
- syshum 7y ago
  >>You can blame the government, I dont blame government, as it is not and should not be the governments role to do this. >Those things sound like they’re precisely the kind of stuff that’s the domain of non-profits and the government. Non-Profits yes, government no Government sole and only job should be to preserve and protect the rights of citizens. Expanding government beyond this role has always lead to disaster and human suffering > you don’t want the institutions with profit motive to be the ones handling charitable works While true in some sense, HN's continual hostility to profit is absurd. Profit motive is what leads innovation, what makes things cheaper, and what allows charity to feed 100 people with a $100-200 donation... Profit Motive is what has brought the massive reduction in poverty world wide... It was not government, it was Free markets that did this
  - TulliusCicero 7y ago
    Profit motive isn't bad. It just doesn't interface well with charity.
  - forgetfulusr 7y ago
    I don't find the hostility to profit absurd. Profit motive also filled the world with crap we don't need. It also accelerated climate change. Through our fossil fuel companies' profit motive. I actually find HN lacking in hostility towards profit, but it seems it's because we selectively choose what to pick up on and remember.
  - harimau777 7y ago
    Throughout the vast majority of human history the role of government has not been just to preserve and protect rights, but also to promote the public good. This is true both of national government and more informal governments such as those in churches and clubs. I think that humanity is a species that operates and survives as a society; therefore, I think its likely that there is a place for society promoting the common good. I agree with you that completely abandoning profit motive would be a very bad idea. However, any process can become harmful if it is allowed to run without limits or safeguards. During the time that poverty has been reduced worldwide we have had both profit motive and the government operating; therefore, I don't think it is reasonable to conclude that profit motive would bring prosperity without also having government to constrain it.
- golemotron 7y ago
  > I mean, yeah? Those things sound like they’re precisely the kind of stuff that’s the domain of non-profits and the government. Why would we expect Slack or other tech companies to be helping random people with housing or social support? The economy is becoming more competitive in the upper 20%. This translates into heightened signaling around social issues for those in that bracket [1]. It's not a bad thing, and people do have their hearts in the right place, but the underlying status anxiety is real and it is an economic effect. [1] https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2019/11/the-real-class-war/ https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2019/11/the-real-class-wa...
- Braggadocious 7y ago
  You're effectively describing trickle-down economics. "Help out rich people so they pay more taxes which will trickle down to poor people" That's not a real thing. The economy is trickle-up. Income inequality is widening. San francisco has the worst income inequality of any city in a developed country: top 1% earn 44x more than bottom 99%. The number of home owners has actually decreased in the last ten years. Cost of living have increased in line with what the top 1% are making. The recession hurt low income far more than the top and yet we subsidized the shit out of the top by giving tax breaks to tech and wallstreet. We basically created a drag race between a ferrari and a civic, gave the ferrari a head start, and then sat around waiting for the civic to catch up.
  - jbay808 7y ago
    I don't think that is the OP's point at all. They aren't saying the tax rate should be low, they're saying that the social safety net should be handled by the government and charities rather than for-profit businesses.
  - TulliusCicero 7y ago
    I'm a social democrat. My point is that we shouldn't be dependent on the whims of private companies feeling charitable or not. If society needs money from them, then that's what taxes are for.
    - Braggadocious 7y ago
      There is no separation between corporations from government.
- dahart 7y ago
  > blaming Slack and co. is silly. It’s not their job, and it shouldn’t be: you don’t want the institutions with profit motive to be the ones handling charitable works. I’d agree with what you said because the reason you gave seems strong & compelling to me; the idea that profit motive might corrupt charity if in charge. On the other hand, I dislike the idea that only government should “handle” social responsibility. (I think what we’re talking about is responsibility, not charity.) And in fact, today there are laws requiring social responsibility of the private sector, so in a very real sense it actually is their job. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_social_responsibility https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_social_responsibil... The kind of thinking that separates the people & companies making money from helping our social outcasts, or just giving back to society in general, is exactly the kind of thinking that leads to having more social outcasts and growing income inequality. When rich people argue they should have no responsibility to pay taxes into social programs, what we end up with is more people who need social programs. Why shouldn’t it be everyone’s job to handle social improvement, including all the companies profiting from the environment that makes their profits possible? > it’s the government that sets the tax rate and decides where revenue goes, not the private sector. While that might be technically accurate, it seems misleading to frame it this way. The private sector has such massive influence on tax policy, it doesn’t even make sense to suggest the government does it and the private sector doesn’t. Lots of laws are effectively written by and for private companies, enough so that we have a serious problem with it and a name for it. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture
  - TulliusCicero 7y ago
    CSR is fine and good when you're talking about behaving in an ethical manner in the course of their business. But there isn't really any reason to want Slack and co in charge of solving housing or health care. It's not their responsibility, it's not their expertise. Expecting every single company to be randomly contributing to a dozen different societal problems outside the scope of their business is a recipe for scatterbrained failure. Like, what even would Slack be expected to do here for housing or health care? Slack can't change zoning regulations. They can't force hospitals to provide price transparency. Why expect them to do something, rather than just take their money and have the government do something with it, when the government has vastly more authority to act?
- andrepd 7y ago
  >The private sector does help here, indirectly, with taxes that go to support such programs. Hah. That would be the idea yes, but we all know how much corporations like paying their tax.
- barrkel 7y ago
  Long term vs short term incentives. It's in companies' interests to have a healthy economy with employed workers, with families bringing up the next generation, etc. But that's a very long term perspective relative to the stock market, which would much rather see lower taxes and higher work force participation for the next few quarters. People voting for public policies are only a little bit better; old people vote for their benefits, middle age people vote against taxes, and young people vote for redistribution when they're aware enough to turn up.
- dang 7y ago
  Please don't take HN threads on generic ideological tangents. Those blow up into generic ideological flamewars, which are always the same and always less interesting than the specific discussion that they destroy by burning as kindling. With your comment, you provoked a flamewar that degenerated straight to bon mots like "Government is to govern.", "I’ve seen this on HN several times, and it always cracks me up. The condescension isn't dripping. It’s running in torrents." and "American Christians say that Jesus Christ is the only true way and that Islam is a false path". It swelled to over a hundred comments, completely dominating the page. Worse, it was sitting at the top when I saw it, crowding out all the discussion that curious readers and commenters are here for. That's not cool; that's the way a community like this destroys itself. Tire fires like this are why the site guidelines explicitly ask: "Eschew flamebait. Don't introduce flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20generic%20discussion&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20black%20hole&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
  - TulliusCicero 7y ago
    With respect, it was directly related to a quote in the article. It wasn't my intent to provoke a flame war; I was addressing what I felt was faulty reasoning used by someone in the article. I understand where you're coming from, but I'm honestly not sure how much of the article -- or articles in general -- I could bring up without it potentially counting as an 'ideological tangent', as that seems like an awfully broad and ambiguous label. Just about everything is ideological to somebody. I also don't see what about my comment exactly counts as flamebait. I wasn't overly abrasive, I didn't say anything particularly outrageous or extreme. It was a political sort of point, yes, but "how do we, as a society, help former criminals integrate back into society" is kind of inherently political, I think.
    - dang 7y ago
kkwak 7y ago
Programming generally provides people with a lot of power. Either in access to data or obviously code. In that, there is a lot of trust requested and given. I know lots of enterprises add a lot of "scans" and "checks" and limit things to much complaints to remove the "we trust you" from the equation, but still you can't scan for everything. The open question is how much trust do you want to give? Of course, 2nd, 3rd, 4th chances are awesome and all - but in reality; as a company with lots to lose. 1. reputationally 2. financially
- livueta 7y ago
  I feel like if any one person can seriously subvert something, you've already lost. Maybe that's just my perspective from working at international enormous tech corp X, but we've already basically got that problem in the form of employees hailing from repressive states (yeah, Australia, that's you now too) where everything needs cross-signing anyway. All in all, I'd probably be more concerned about foreign nationals open to various forms of coercion than I would felons - in the general case, anyway. Of course, there are certain environments where more assurance is needed and not employing from either category is reasonable, and the type of criminal background also matters. For instance, someone from a bad neighborhood who got swept up in gang activity like the guy in the article is probably a lot less likely to try to fuck you over than a serious convicted blackhat/fraudster. It's also possible to, as in the article, explicitly limit their roles to those that don't touch customer data or sensitive product code, where it'd be significantly more sufficient to parlay access into a quick payout. One ironic thing is that's frequently the exact opposite of how it works in practice: think of all the crooked telco CS reps who've been doing SIM swaps recently. Those roles aren't exactly exclusive positions, and I'd argue they're a good example of why paying people crap combined with poor vetting and lots of access is a bad idea.
  - A4ET8a8uTh0 7y ago
    I agree. Proper controls are half the battle. Naturally, those tend to be ignored when things get difficult..
    - 7y ago
purple_ducks 7y ago
I'm all for the positivity but really?? > Access to an elite organization In what way is Slack elite? These writers need to tone done their hyperbole.
- DaiPlusPlus 7y ago
  > In what way is Slack elite? Slack's a big name in the tech industry and there's certainly competition for jobs they have on offer. As _elite_ as, say, Apple, Google or Facebook? Probably not - but they're not Accenture or Capita either.
- jayparth 7y ago
  In what way is Slack not elite? Slack is within the top 10% of companies in the Bay Area by pretty much any metric you choose to rank companies by. By almost any measure, that's elite. Is Berkeley not an elite school, because it's less prestigious than Stanford?
  - pkaye 7y ago
    > Slack is within the top 10% of companies in the Bay Area by pretty much any metric you choose to rank companies by. What about profitability?
  - purple_ducks 7y ago
    Since we're answering questions with questions... > Slack is within the top 10% of companies in the Bay Area by pretty much any metric you choose to rank companies by What are you basing that on? I'd say a bloated chat app in no way portrays elite. What has come out of Slack that screams elite? There's more to elite than just 'oh look it shiny'
    - jayparth 7y ago
      Whatever dude, I'm not going to argue with you here. The beginning of this article starts out by explaining what a stand up is. It's not written for tech workers it's a general piece. And just working at any large technology company puts you in a very small fraction of the population and the truth is a lot of people vy for these positions. If you work at Slack coming out of undergraduate, you'll be a top 1% earner for your age bracket. That is pretty "elite" by a normal person's standard. My original point still stands. Realize you're living in a bubble if you think a normal person would not consider working at any "average" tech company like Atlassian, or Dropbox, elite. Let me guess, you work at a company that's """elite"""?
kzzzznot 7y ago
A company in the UK that also has an ex-offender (edit: apparently prisoners still serving their sentences are given an opportunity to learn the trade) hiring/apprenticeship program is Timpson, a locksmiths https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/apr/06/the-support-never-stops-says-prisoner-who-works-at-timpsons https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/apr/06/the-support...
deleted 7y ago
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ShorsHammer 7y ago
> Issues that absolutely nobody thinks much of outside of the country that imprisons more people per capita than Xinjiang
- dang 7y ago
  Would you please stop posting flamebait here? We've already had to ask you this. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
jstewartmobile 7y ago
How would, "What happens after prisoners become accountants / lawyers / bankers..." sound? To me, it says that trust in our profession is interchangeable with that of trained felons. I'd rather not have technically proficient felons near passwords, credit card #s, and other personal information. Edit: I hate to sound like a Calvinist here, but you have to ask yourself how much a change in behavior is due to "rehabilitation", and how much of it is purely situational. From what I've seen, they're model employees, until the setback--be it divorce, drugs, financial hardship, stress, etc. Then there is the backslide. And you don't have to take my word for it. Recidivism rates are very very high.
- sokoloff 7y ago
  The specific felony matters a lot to me. Someone busted with a gram of marijuana or a bong in Arizona can pick up a felony conviction for it. Someone with a previous embezzlement charge is a different story (even if the embezzlement conviction was only a misdemeanor).
  - jstewartmobile 7y ago
    I'd also disregard a pot bust. This Aguirre guy in the article was at least an accessory to a shooting--even though they charged him with much more than that... not the kind of person I want near confidential information.
    - sokoloff 7y ago
      I did different/lesser dumb stuff when I was 17. If my friends were into "street life" instead of cars, computer games, and D&D, I can see a scenario where I'd be along for the ride in one of their/our exploits. Peer pressure and "going along without thinking through the consequences" in a group of your friends at that age is a real thing and I don't think is strongly predictive of adult trustworthiness. (I generally tend towards the "law and order" side of things.)
- danso 7y ago
  The article says the felon coders who were hired are in the test engineering department, due to restrictions clients have when it comes to data access by people with criminal records. And those with criminal records are allowed to practice law. Quite a few inspirational stories of this actually: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shon_Hopwood https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shon_Hopwood
bipolar_lisper 7y ago
I mean at the end of the day this is just a way to get cheap labor.
- angel_j 7y ago
  Nothing cheap about it. More like an expensive way to make all kinds of middle-people feel good and collect a check. Did you see how many organizations are behind the effort? It probably took millions of dollars to go from zero to hiring ex-con coders.
- bdcravens 7y ago
  The "but our jobs! but our pay!" refrain is a common one, but our industry has WAY too many job openings for this to be a legit worry (the very presence of the h1b visa proves this). As for salary, as those jobs get filled, whether by bootcamp grads, or journeymen, or trained individuals with a criminal record - it will push income down for some. Some incomes are a product of scarcity, and you only need to look at a supply/demand curve to know what will happen to prices. In the late 90s, you'd spend tens of thousands of dollars to get a basic website. Now you can get one for a few hundred.
- qes 7y ago
  > cheap labor I'm an ex-con developer. To be fair, my dev roots go back to childhood. I make around a quarter million a year in a mid-range cost of living city in the mid-west US.
  - selimthegrim 7y ago
    What industry do you work in?
    - qes 7y ago
      Digital signage
- paxys 7y ago
  I can assure you the companies mentioned in the article are spending a lot more on this program than they would just hiring a new college graduate.
danso 7y ago
> * Drew McGahey, the engineering manager at Slack for all three apprentices, was initially struck by their ability to solve what he called “blank-canvas problems”—those that don’t have prescribed solutions. “Thinking back to their experience, it makes a lot of sense,” he said. “They all learned how to code in an environment where they didn’t have access to the internet. They’ve got drive.”* Anyone familiar with contemporary interviews have insight/examples on what “blank-canvas” problems are?
- gaogao 7y ago
  Open-ended design/architecture problems. For backend, a classic one is how do you design a basic twitter clone that can handle a tweet by a popular person going to their millions of followers.
- bagacrap 7y ago
  they don't have to consult the internet to get the answers
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Braggadocious 7y ago
I love how inmates get a better education and more support from tech companies than the adults who live in the bay area. The bay area has the worst income inequality of anywhere in any developed country. Bootcamps are a scam and cost tens of thousands of dollars and yet inmates, people convicted of severe crimes, are treated to free education. From a business standpoint this makes more sense because inmates have no bargaining power and can flood the coding labor pool, thus lowering wages for businesses. How is a boot camp graduate supposed to compete with modern-day slaves? By the way the W.K. Kellogg Foundation is a eugenics group. What are they doing here? This program is so fishy.
- bdcravens 7y ago
  I'm a bit unclear on your perspective here. Are you saying teaching inmates is wrong because they've apparently lost their chance at success in life because of their "severe crimes"? Regardless of that perspective, here's a truth: most inmates will be released at some point. As a matter of fact, alot of the inequality you reference is a result of those with criminal backgrounds and the socioeconomic conditions that got them those backgrounds. We have a rich set of statistics about what happens to people in that situation: desperation -> crime -> prison -> repeat. Personally I don't like that world. I want to feel safe in my world, and anything we can do to short-circuit that recidivism cycle makes us all safer. The "but our jobs! but our pay!" refrain is a common one, but our industry has WAY too many job openings for this to be a legit worry (the very presence of the h1b visa proves this). As for salary, as those jobs get filled, whether by bootcamp grads, or journeymen, or trained individuals with a criminal record - it will push income down for some. Some incomes are a product of scarcity, and you only need to look at a supply/demand curve to know what will happen to prices. In the late 90s, you'd spend tens of thousands of dollars to get a basic website. Now you can get one for a few hundred.
  - Braggadocious 7y ago
    The entire point of prison is to remove them from society. Why are we spending more resources on prisoners than people who've never commited a crime?
williesleg 7y ago
You mean like H1B Visa holders? Oh, right....
RickJWagner 7y ago
Good for Slack, and good for the new coders. My 30 years in the industry gives me a gut hunch anyone can be a successful coder. I hope these folks prove it.
elizianoalves 7y ago
Hey
Caleb_Smith 7y ago
I have been teaching a Python course at my local jail M-F for over a year now, and something we have struggled with is finding potential internships or general employment for our students when they are released. We typically recommend our students to enter the local community college system, but we also have some students that are utterly brilliant and could succeed without a formal education. Does anyone have any insight for how we should approach companies on their behalf? Is it more beneficial to teach web development (it seems like this is an easier way to break into the industry)? I am also interested in hearing any opinions on how we should approach teaching in the setting where there is no internet access and the typical mathematics level is algebra.
- atdrummond 7y ago
  Please email me at alex@gatepay.co - would love to work something out if possible.
- paxys 7y ago
  You should try reaching out to https://thelastmile.org/ https://thelastmile.org/
- WalterBright 7y ago
  Contributing to significant open source projects has been a path to success for many people I know.
  - labster 7y ago
    I've never been incarcerated, but the open source path worked for me. But on the other hand, my family is well off enough that I could afford a year writing code for free. I'd imagine that most people getting out of prison need to earn a living right away.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - soulofmischief 7y ago
newsreader 7y ago
I spent 19 years of my life incarcerated. My life of crime started when my family moved to East Los Angeles and I decided to become a gang member at the age of 15. My last stint in prison was fourteen years straight; having been sentenced to 21 years but was granted parole on my first parole hearing. During my prison time, I enrolled in educational activities and got my GED, an Associate of Arts degree with honors, and later a degree in Computer Information Systems. Needless to say, that it took me time to adjust to a completely different type of life on the outside than the one I had been accustomed to. More than once I had the experience of being rejected, and of job offers being withdrawn, because of my criminal history. For the last 20 years, I have been working as a software developer and make a good living thanks to the career I chose while in prison. I hope more companies have the courage to take a chance on others such as myself that have paid their debt to society and are trying to live a normal life. Kudos to Slack and all the companies that believe in giving people a second chance.
- abvdasker 7y ago
  Thanks for sharing your story. It really makes me angry to hear about the countless obstacles the formerly incarcerated face when it comes to reintegrating into society. As you put it, the debt to society has been paid. Someone who makes a mistake when they're young and stupid -- I know I made my share -- shouldn't be prevented from ever being able to have a good, normal life.
  - anonytrary 7y ago
    It is unfortunate that, although sentenced with finite punishments, ex-cons continue to be punished (i.e. judged, discriminated against) well after their sentence is over. That said, I can also understand why companies avoid ex-cons. Companies make decisions based on statistics. A company will, ceterus paribus, always choose the candidate who has no criminal history because that candidate is less likely to commit a crime and hurt the company.
    - Bostonian 7y ago
      Allow companies to pay felons less for the same job, at least for some finite period of time, to compensate for that risk. Otherwise, as you say, it makes sense for them to hire people without a criminal record, other things being equal.
theshadowknows 7y ago
I understand that some organizations have pretty strict requirements, some government mandated, regarding a criminal background. But most do not. And it gets on my nerves that the tech industry, one who has many heroes that were themselves close to or outright criminals, has been so slow getting on this train. I think that’s sort of a symptom of the broification of the industry and I’m not proud of it.

226 points by ForHackernews 7y ago

> We need to applaud companies like Slack, but know that the nitty-gritty of human services—housing, health care, social support—which lots of nonprofits and public institutions are working on, the private sector has largely turned away from.” I mean, yeah? Those things sound like they’re precisely the kind of stuff that’s the domain of non-profits and the government. Why would we expect Slack or other tech companies to be helping random people with housing or social support? The private sector does help here, indirectly, with taxes that go to support such programs. And it’s the government that sets the tax rate and decides where revenue goes, not the private sector. You can blame the government, or the people who voted them in, but blaming Slack and co. is silly. It’s not their job, and it shouldn’t be: you don’t want the institutions with profit motive to be the ones handling charitable works. That’s part of the whole reason we have a government.

AlexanderDhoore 7y ago
You live in Munich. You think like a European. Left or right on the political spectrum, doesn't matter. What you said is generally accepted as "how it works" in Europe. Not so much in other places.
- wayoutthere 7y ago
  The Color of Law by Richard Rothstein is an excellent history of how government policy was co-opted by white supremacists in America.
  - mynameishere 7y ago
    That would certainly explain mass immigration, affirmative action, hate crime laws, and endless wars for Israel. White supremacists being in charge.
- TulliusCicero 7y ago
  I'm from the states, grew up Mormon, and have lived in Alabama and Utah, in addition to other regions. I'm very aware of how the American mindset works, thanks.
DaiPlusPlus 7y ago
Government is to govern. Government in most countries is driven by democratic mandates. Democratic mandates are set by influencers. The US’ key influencers are largely regressive and dishonest - and convince people to either not vote - or to vote against their personal best interests[1]. The US government does not currently have a democratic mandate to operate as the social welfare state. Consequently hundreds of thousands - if not millions - of people are immorally (by my own standards) disadvantaged and with no means or realistic opportunity to better themselves. So if a private company (or shareholders-forbid: a publicly traded company)’s leadership feels a moral obligation to help those left behind by the state - more power to them. Until the US truly embraces the “for the people” part of the “by the people, of the people, for the people” part of their unofficial motto it really is up to private entities to make-up the difference. [1] UPDATE: To clarify - I don't mean that I somehow know what's in someone else's best interests - because I don't - nor their exact reasons for voting for a particular party or candidate - but I mean that it's still possible to _objectively_ say that many people vote for ideological or sentimental reasons that appeal to them (which is part of democracy!) with - or without - having done (for example) a spreadsheet comparisons of how each candidate's manifesto politics would affect their cost of living, quality of living, economic expectations, and so on. I can respect someone voting against their interests for ideological or moral reasons - provided it's done with informed consent. I'm not convinced that most- or even a plurality - of GOP voters in recent US elections sat down and made a spreadsheet and said "yup - I'm okay with rising the cost of my individual health insurance provided it means I have the choice to refuse healthcare coverage" (and that is not a misrepresentation of the ACA and its opponents' stated positions). So by all means - vote against your own interests - provided you do it with informed consent - otherwise you _really_ are voting against your own interests.
- jtbayly 7y ago
  > convince people to either not vote - or to vote against their personal best interests. I’ve seen this on HN several times, and it always cracks me up. The condescension isn't dripping. It’s running in torrents. You think the reason they won’t vote the way you want is because they don’t know what’s good for themselves. You might want to consider an alternate: they don’t want someone like you deciding what’s good for them and forcing it down their throats.
pytester 7y ago
>Why would we expect Slack or other tech companies to be helping random people with housing or social support? Yet they expect congratulations. Slack's selfish commercial interest is entirely aligned with hiring cheap developers, but, they put out a press release and the atlantic magazine took it up. I worked with a another charity that did a similar thing (not prisoners, but the underprivileged) and one of the companies we got some of them jobs at did the same thing. The company got some cheap developers, avoided commission on a recruitment agency and then proceeded to issue a press release patting themselves on the back.
- tyingq 7y ago
  In this particular case, I think it's worth it even it is self serving. The advent of cheap online background checks has added to the already difficult task of getting a job if you're a felon. Any publicity around hiring them helps normalize it as expected.
  - pytester 7y ago
    This piece of PR fluff isn't helping regular ex cons get regular jobs in non-tight labor markets.
    - tyingq 7y ago
      If you look at what funded the article, at the bottom, I believe that's the intent. Though, yes, they did over gush about Slack.
  - robsinatra 7y ago
    I'm waiting for the moral grandstanders to take to social media and try to publicly shame companies for refusing to hire their trained ex-cons
- TulliusCicero 7y ago
  They're playing the PR game and winning. I find it hard to blame them for that. Especially since they're not lying or doing anything explicitly harmful.
syshum 7y ago
>>You can blame the government, I dont blame government, as it is not and should not be the governments role to do this. >Those things sound like they’re precisely the kind of stuff that’s the domain of non-profits and the government. Non-Profits yes, government no Government sole and only job should be to preserve and protect the rights of citizens. Expanding government beyond this role has always lead to disaster and human suffering > you don’t want the institutions with profit motive to be the ones handling charitable works While true in some sense, HN's continual hostility to profit is absurd. Profit motive is what leads innovation, what makes things cheaper, and what allows charity to feed 100 people with a $100-200 donation... Profit Motive is what has brought the massive reduction in poverty world wide... It was not government, it was Free markets that did this
- TulliusCicero 7y ago
  Profit motive isn't bad. It just doesn't interface well with charity.
- forgetfulusr 7y ago
  I don't find the hostility to profit absurd. Profit motive also filled the world with crap we don't need. It also accelerated climate change. Through our fossil fuel companies' profit motive. I actually find HN lacking in hostility towards profit, but it seems it's because we selectively choose what to pick up on and remember.
- harimau777 7y ago
  Throughout the vast majority of human history the role of government has not been just to preserve and protect rights, but also to promote the public good. This is true both of national government and more informal governments such as those in churches and clubs. I think that humanity is a species that operates and survives as a society; therefore, I think its likely that there is a place for society promoting the common good. I agree with you that completely abandoning profit motive would be a very bad idea. However, any process can become harmful if it is allowed to run without limits or safeguards. During the time that poverty has been reduced worldwide we have had both profit motive and the government operating; therefore, I don't think it is reasonable to conclude that profit motive would bring prosperity without also having government to constrain it.
golemotron 7y ago
> I mean, yeah? Those things sound like they’re precisely the kind of stuff that’s the domain of non-profits and the government. Why would we expect Slack or other tech companies to be helping random people with housing or social support? The economy is becoming more competitive in the upper 20%. This translates into heightened signaling around social issues for those in that bracket [1]. It's not a bad thing, and people do have their hearts in the right place, but the underlying status anxiety is real and it is an economic effect. [1] https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2019/11/the-real-class-war/ https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2019/11/the-real-class-wa...
Braggadocious 7y ago
You're effectively describing trickle-down economics. "Help out rich people so they pay more taxes which will trickle down to poor people" That's not a real thing. The economy is trickle-up. Income inequality is widening. San francisco has the worst income inequality of any city in a developed country: top 1% earn 44x more than bottom 99%. The number of home owners has actually decreased in the last ten years. Cost of living have increased in line with what the top 1% are making. The recession hurt low income far more than the top and yet we subsidized the shit out of the top by giving tax breaks to tech and wallstreet. We basically created a drag race between a ferrari and a civic, gave the ferrari a head start, and then sat around waiting for the civic to catch up.
- jbay808 7y ago
  I don't think that is the OP's point at all. They aren't saying the tax rate should be low, they're saying that the social safety net should be handled by the government and charities rather than for-profit businesses.
- TulliusCicero 7y ago
  I'm a social democrat. My point is that we shouldn't be dependent on the whims of private companies feeling charitable or not. If society needs money from them, then that's what taxes are for.
  - Braggadocious 7y ago
    There is no separation between corporations from government.
dahart 7y ago
> blaming Slack and co. is silly. It’s not their job, and it shouldn’t be: you don’t want the institutions with profit motive to be the ones handling charitable works. I’d agree with what you said because the reason you gave seems strong & compelling to me; the idea that profit motive might corrupt charity if in charge. On the other hand, I dislike the idea that only government should “handle” social responsibility. (I think what we’re talking about is responsibility, not charity.) And in fact, today there are laws requiring social responsibility of the private sector, so in a very real sense it actually is their job. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_social_responsibility https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_social_responsibil... The kind of thinking that separates the people & companies making money from helping our social outcasts, or just giving back to society in general, is exactly the kind of thinking that leads to having more social outcasts and growing income inequality. When rich people argue they should have no responsibility to pay taxes into social programs, what we end up with is more people who need social programs. Why shouldn’t it be everyone’s job to handle social improvement, including all the companies profiting from the environment that makes their profits possible? > it’s the government that sets the tax rate and decides where revenue goes, not the private sector. While that might be technically accurate, it seems misleading to frame it this way. The private sector has such massive influence on tax policy, it doesn’t even make sense to suggest the government does it and the private sector doesn’t. Lots of laws are effectively written by and for private companies, enough so that we have a serious problem with it and a name for it. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture
- TulliusCicero 7y ago
  CSR is fine and good when you're talking about behaving in an ethical manner in the course of their business. But there isn't really any reason to want Slack and co in charge of solving housing or health care. It's not their responsibility, it's not their expertise. Expecting every single company to be randomly contributing to a dozen different societal problems outside the scope of their business is a recipe for scatterbrained failure. Like, what even would Slack be expected to do here for housing or health care? Slack can't change zoning regulations. They can't force hospitals to provide price transparency. Why expect them to do something, rather than just take their money and have the government do something with it, when the government has vastly more authority to act?
andrepd 7y ago
>The private sector does help here, indirectly, with taxes that go to support such programs. Hah. That would be the idea yes, but we all know how much corporations like paying their tax.
barrkel 7y ago
Long term vs short term incentives. It's in companies' interests to have a healthy economy with employed workers, with families bringing up the next generation, etc. But that's a very long term perspective relative to the stock market, which would much rather see lower taxes and higher work force participation for the next few quarters. People voting for public policies are only a little bit better; old people vote for their benefits, middle age people vote against taxes, and young people vote for redistribution when they're aware enough to turn up.
dang 7y ago
Please don't take HN threads on generic ideological tangents. Those blow up into generic ideological flamewars, which are always the same and always less interesting than the specific discussion that they destroy by burning as kindling. With your comment, you provoked a flamewar that degenerated straight to bon mots like "Government is to govern.", "I’ve seen this on HN several times, and it always cracks me up. The condescension isn't dripping. It’s running in torrents." and "American Christians say that Jesus Christ is the only true way and that Islam is a false path". It swelled to over a hundred comments, completely dominating the page. Worse, it was sitting at the top when I saw it, crowding out all the discussion that curious readers and commenters are here for. That's not cool; that's the way a community like this destroys itself. Tire fires like this are why the site guidelines explicitly ask: "Eschew flamebait. Don't introduce flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20generic%20discussion&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20black%20hole&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
- TulliusCicero 7y ago
  With respect, it was directly related to a quote in the article. It wasn't my intent to provoke a flame war; I was addressing what I felt was faulty reasoning used by someone in the article. I understand where you're coming from, but I'm honestly not sure how much of the article -- or articles in general -- I could bring up without it potentially counting as an 'ideological tangent', as that seems like an awfully broad and ambiguous label. Just about everything is ideological to somebody. I also don't see what about my comment exactly counts as flamebait. I wasn't overly abrasive, I didn't say anything particularly outrageous or extreme. It was a political sort of point, yes, but "how do we, as a society, help former criminals integrate back into society" is kind of inherently political, I think.
  - dang 7y ago

kkwak 7y ago

Programming generally provides people with a lot of power. Either in access to data or obviously code. In that, there is a lot of trust requested and given. I know lots of enterprises add a lot of "scans" and "checks" and limit things to much complaints to remove the "we trust you" from the equation, but still you can't scan for everything. The open question is how much trust do you want to give? Of course, 2nd, 3rd, 4th chances are awesome and all - but in reality; as a company with lots to lose. 1. reputationally 2. financially

livueta 7y ago
I feel like if any one person can seriously subvert something, you've already lost. Maybe that's just my perspective from working at international enormous tech corp X, but we've already basically got that problem in the form of employees hailing from repressive states (yeah, Australia, that's you now too) where everything needs cross-signing anyway. All in all, I'd probably be more concerned about foreign nationals open to various forms of coercion than I would felons - in the general case, anyway. Of course, there are certain environments where more assurance is needed and not employing from either category is reasonable, and the type of criminal background also matters. For instance, someone from a bad neighborhood who got swept up in gang activity like the guy in the article is probably a lot less likely to try to fuck you over than a serious convicted blackhat/fraudster. It's also possible to, as in the article, explicitly limit their roles to those that don't touch customer data or sensitive product code, where it'd be significantly more sufficient to parlay access into a quick payout. One ironic thing is that's frequently the exact opposite of how it works in practice: think of all the crooked telco CS reps who've been doing SIM swaps recently. Those roles aren't exactly exclusive positions, and I'd argue they're a good example of why paying people crap combined with poor vetting and lots of access is a bad idea.
- A4ET8a8uTh0 7y ago
  I agree. Proper controls are half the battle. Naturally, those tend to be ignored when things get difficult..
  - 7y ago

purple_ducks 7y ago

I'm all for the positivity but really?? > Access to an elite organization In what way is Slack elite? These writers need to tone done their hyperbole.

DaiPlusPlus 7y ago
> In what way is Slack elite? Slack's a big name in the tech industry and there's certainly competition for jobs they have on offer. As _elite_ as, say, Apple, Google or Facebook? Probably not - but they're not Accenture or Capita either.
jayparth 7y ago
In what way is Slack not elite? Slack is within the top 10% of companies in the Bay Area by pretty much any metric you choose to rank companies by. By almost any measure, that's elite. Is Berkeley not an elite school, because it's less prestigious than Stanford?
- pkaye 7y ago
  > Slack is within the top 10% of companies in the Bay Area by pretty much any metric you choose to rank companies by. What about profitability?
- purple_ducks 7y ago
  Since we're answering questions with questions... > Slack is within the top 10% of companies in the Bay Area by pretty much any metric you choose to rank companies by What are you basing that on? I'd say a bloated chat app in no way portrays elite. What has come out of Slack that screams elite? There's more to elite than just 'oh look it shiny'
  - jayparth 7y ago
    Whatever dude, I'm not going to argue with you here. The beginning of this article starts out by explaining what a stand up is. It's not written for tech workers it's a general piece. And just working at any large technology company puts you in a very small fraction of the population and the truth is a lot of people vy for these positions. If you work at Slack coming out of undergraduate, you'll be a top 1% earner for your age bracket. That is pretty "elite" by a normal person's standard. My original point still stands. Realize you're living in a bubble if you think a normal person would not consider working at any "average" tech company like Atlassian, or Dropbox, elite. Let me guess, you work at a company that's """elite"""?

kzzzznot 7y ago

A company in the UK that also has an ex-offender (edit: apparently prisoners still serving their sentences are given an opportunity to learn the trade) hiring/apprenticeship program is Timpson, a locksmiths https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/apr/06/the-support-never-stops-says-prisoner-who-works-at-timpsons https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/apr/06/the-support...

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

ShorsHammer 7y ago

> Issues that absolutely nobody thinks much of outside of the country that imprisons more people per capita than Xinjiang

dang 7y ago
Would you please stop posting flamebait here? We've already had to ask you this. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

jstewartmobile 7y ago

How would, "What happens after prisoners become accountants / lawyers / bankers..." sound? To me, it says that trust in our profession is interchangeable with that of trained felons. I'd rather not have technically proficient felons near passwords, credit card #s, and other personal information. Edit: I hate to sound like a Calvinist here, but you have to ask yourself how much a change in behavior is due to "rehabilitation", and how much of it is purely situational. From what I've seen, they're model employees, until the setback--be it divorce, drugs, financial hardship, stress, etc. Then there is the backslide. And you don't have to take my word for it. Recidivism rates are very very high.

sokoloff 7y ago
The specific felony matters a lot to me. Someone busted with a gram of marijuana or a bong in Arizona can pick up a felony conviction for it. Someone with a previous embezzlement charge is a different story (even if the embezzlement conviction was only a misdemeanor).
- jstewartmobile 7y ago
  I'd also disregard a pot bust. This Aguirre guy in the article was at least an accessory to a shooting--even though they charged him with much more than that... not the kind of person I want near confidential information.
  - sokoloff 7y ago
    I did different/lesser dumb stuff when I was 17. If my friends were into "street life" instead of cars, computer games, and D&D, I can see a scenario where I'd be along for the ride in one of their/our exploits. Peer pressure and "going along without thinking through the consequences" in a group of your friends at that age is a real thing and I don't think is strongly predictive of adult trustworthiness. (I generally tend towards the "law and order" side of things.)
danso 7y ago
The article says the felon coders who were hired are in the test engineering department, due to restrictions clients have when it comes to data access by people with criminal records. And those with criminal records are allowed to practice law. Quite a few inspirational stories of this actually: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shon_Hopwood https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shon_Hopwood

bipolar_lisper 7y ago

I mean at the end of the day this is just a way to get cheap labor.

angel_j 7y ago
Nothing cheap about it. More like an expensive way to make all kinds of middle-people feel good and collect a check. Did you see how many organizations are behind the effort? It probably took millions of dollars to go from zero to hiring ex-con coders.
bdcravens 7y ago
The "but our jobs! but our pay!" refrain is a common one, but our industry has WAY too many job openings for this to be a legit worry (the very presence of the h1b visa proves this). As for salary, as those jobs get filled, whether by bootcamp grads, or journeymen, or trained individuals with a criminal record - it will push income down for some. Some incomes are a product of scarcity, and you only need to look at a supply/demand curve to know what will happen to prices. In the late 90s, you'd spend tens of thousands of dollars to get a basic website. Now you can get one for a few hundred.
qes 7y ago
> cheap labor I'm an ex-con developer. To be fair, my dev roots go back to childhood. I make around a quarter million a year in a mid-range cost of living city in the mid-west US.
- selimthegrim 7y ago
  What industry do you work in?
  - qes 7y ago
    Digital signage
paxys 7y ago
I can assure you the companies mentioned in the article are spending a lot more on this program than they would just hiring a new college graduate.

danso 7y ago

> * Drew McGahey, the engineering manager at Slack for all three apprentices, was initially struck by their ability to solve what he called “blank-canvas problems”—those that don’t have prescribed solutions. “Thinking back to their experience, it makes a lot of sense,” he said. “They all learned how to code in an environment where they didn’t have access to the internet. They’ve got drive.”* Anyone familiar with contemporary interviews have insight/examples on what “blank-canvas” problems are?

gaogao 7y ago
Open-ended design/architecture problems. For backend, a classic one is how do you design a basic twitter clone that can handle a tweet by a popular person going to their millions of followers.
bagacrap 7y ago
they don't have to consult the internet to get the answers

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

Braggadocious 7y ago

I love how inmates get a better education and more support from tech companies than the adults who live in the bay area. The bay area has the worst income inequality of anywhere in any developed country. Bootcamps are a scam and cost tens of thousands of dollars and yet inmates, people convicted of severe crimes, are treated to free education. From a business standpoint this makes more sense because inmates have no bargaining power and can flood the coding labor pool, thus lowering wages for businesses. How is a boot camp graduate supposed to compete with modern-day slaves? By the way the W.K. Kellogg Foundation is a eugenics group. What are they doing here? This program is so fishy.

bdcravens 7y ago
I'm a bit unclear on your perspective here. Are you saying teaching inmates is wrong because they've apparently lost their chance at success in life because of their "severe crimes"? Regardless of that perspective, here's a truth: most inmates will be released at some point. As a matter of fact, alot of the inequality you reference is a result of those with criminal backgrounds and the socioeconomic conditions that got them those backgrounds. We have a rich set of statistics about what happens to people in that situation: desperation -> crime -> prison -> repeat. Personally I don't like that world. I want to feel safe in my world, and anything we can do to short-circuit that recidivism cycle makes us all safer. The "but our jobs! but our pay!" refrain is a common one, but our industry has WAY too many job openings for this to be a legit worry (the very presence of the h1b visa proves this). As for salary, as those jobs get filled, whether by bootcamp grads, or journeymen, or trained individuals with a criminal record - it will push income down for some. Some incomes are a product of scarcity, and you only need to look at a supply/demand curve to know what will happen to prices. In the late 90s, you'd spend tens of thousands of dollars to get a basic website. Now you can get one for a few hundred.
- Braggadocious 7y ago
  The entire point of prison is to remove them from society. Why are we spending more resources on prisoners than people who've never commited a crime?

williesleg 7y ago

You mean like H1B Visa holders? Oh, right....

RickJWagner 7y ago

Good for Slack, and good for the new coders. My 30 years in the industry gives me a gut hunch anyone can be a successful coder. I hope these folks prove it.

elizianoalves 7y ago

Hey

Caleb_Smith 7y ago

I have been teaching a Python course at my local jail M-F for over a year now, and something we have struggled with is finding potential internships or general employment for our students when they are released. We typically recommend our students to enter the local community college system, but we also have some students that are utterly brilliant and could succeed without a formal education. Does anyone have any insight for how we should approach companies on their behalf? Is it more beneficial to teach web development (it seems like this is an easier way to break into the industry)? I am also interested in hearing any opinions on how we should approach teaching in the setting where there is no internet access and the typical mathematics level is algebra.

atdrummond 7y ago
Please email me at alex@gatepay.co - would love to work something out if possible.
paxys 7y ago
You should try reaching out to https://thelastmile.org/ https://thelastmile.org/
WalterBright 7y ago
Contributing to significant open source projects has been a path to success for many people I know.
- labster 7y ago
  I've never been incarcerated, but the open source path worked for me. But on the other hand, my family is well off enough that I could afford a year writing code for free. I'd imagine that most people getting out of prison need to earn a living right away.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - soulofmischief 7y ago

newsreader 7y ago

I spent 19 years of my life incarcerated. My life of crime started when my family moved to East Los Angeles and I decided to become a gang member at the age of 15. My last stint in prison was fourteen years straight; having been sentenced to 21 years but was granted parole on my first parole hearing. During my prison time, I enrolled in educational activities and got my GED, an Associate of Arts degree with honors, and later a degree in Computer Information Systems. Needless to say, that it took me time to adjust to a completely different type of life on the outside than the one I had been accustomed to. More than once I had the experience of being rejected, and of job offers being withdrawn, because of my criminal history. For the last 20 years, I have been working as a software developer and make a good living thanks to the career I chose while in prison. I hope more companies have the courage to take a chance on others such as myself that have paid their debt to society and are trying to live a normal life. Kudos to Slack and all the companies that believe in giving people a second chance.

abvdasker 7y ago
Thanks for sharing your story. It really makes me angry to hear about the countless obstacles the formerly incarcerated face when it comes to reintegrating into society. As you put it, the debt to society has been paid. Someone who makes a mistake when they're young and stupid -- I know I made my share -- shouldn't be prevented from ever being able to have a good, normal life.
- anonytrary 7y ago
  It is unfortunate that, although sentenced with finite punishments, ex-cons continue to be punished (i.e. judged, discriminated against) well after their sentence is over. That said, I can also understand why companies avoid ex-cons. Companies make decisions based on statistics. A company will, ceterus paribus, always choose the candidate who has no criminal history because that candidate is less likely to commit a crime and hurt the company.
  - Bostonian 7y ago
    Allow companies to pay felons less for the same job, at least for some finite period of time, to compensate for that risk. Otherwise, as you say, it makes sense for them to hire people without a criminal record, other things being equal.

theshadowknows 7y ago

I understand that some organizations have pretty strict requirements, some government mandated, regarding a criminal background. But most do not. And it gets on my nerves that the tech industry, one who has many heroes that were themselves close to or outright criminals, has been so slow getting on this train. I think that’s sort of a symptom of the broification of the industry and I’m not proud of it.