18 ms·

Out of prison after 30 years and people telling him to find forms on the web

tyingq 6y ago
30 years, so he would have went into prison in 1991. Wow, yeah, I can imagine getting out would have been a surreal experience.
- HenryBemis 6y ago
  To that point, I was thinking that.. in some countries, even if you are jailed for murder, after some time served, you may request and can be allowed to take some 'leave' (24/48h). Didn't he get the chance to take any such 'leaves' in the US? I honestly don't know US Justice system. Would there be the chance that his crime was so severe to not be allowed to get a leave at all for 30 years?
  - tyingq 6y ago
    "Didn't he get the chance to take any such 'leaves' in the US?" Probably not. I'm sure some programs exist like that, but it's complicated. In the US, most prisoners are in State, not Federal prisons. Every state, and even every prison, has different programs and rules. Also, in general, US culture views prison as pure punishment and not rehabilitation.
  - caseyscottmckay 6y ago
    Leaves from prison (felons) are not common in the U.S. Leaves from jail (misdemeanors) are more common (e.g., leave for work during the day, then back to jail after work).
  - technothrasher 6y ago
    There have been some cases in the US of violent criminals being given furlough and committing further violent crimes while out. This has tended to reduce furlough opportunities here.
  - liuhenry 6y ago
    I grew up in the US and (unfortunately) this was the first time I'd heard of such a concept. I did some research and "prison furloughs" became a key political issue in the 1988 US presidential election [1]. The federal prison system now only allows non-emergency furloughs for inmates if they are within 2 years of their release/parole date, and who did not commit a violent crime. Prison furlough programs existed in all 50 states in the 1980s, and "almost 10 percent of state and federal prisoners received a furlough in 1987". [2][3] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolving_Door_(advertisement) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolving_Door_(advertisement) [2] https://www.nytimes.com/1988/10/12/us/study-says-53000-got-prison-furloughs-in-87-and-few-did-harm.html https://www.nytimes.com/1988/10/12/us/study-says-53000-got-p... [3] https://www.themarshallproject.org/2015/05/13/willie-horton-revisited https://www.themarshallproject.org/2015/05/13/willie-horton-...
  - b_t_s 6y ago
    From an American perspective that's like giving the lion at the zoo a 24 hour leave to stroll around the city. It's so obviously absurd almost nobody would ever think of it unprompted. Many of the higher security prisons here are brutal dangerous paces. Sentences are long, often lifelong. Surviving a 30 year sentence without committing further crimes in prison that add to your sentence isn't so easy. Anybody with significant time left on their 30 year sentence would be a fool not to flee if given a 24 hour leave. Some of the low security prisons do have some resources focused on rehabilitation. But a lot of the higher security ones where most serious/violent/drug convicts end up are essentially warehouses for storing people who can't legally be executed until they're old and feeble enough to be released "safely" as pensioners/disabled/homeless. There's a reason criminal justice reform is such a big deal. Much of the country wishes we could dispense with the warehousing and just execute them all. While another contingent is very much tired of being thrown into those warehouses to rot based on race/socioeconomic status/the size of their bag of weed or a variety of other relatively harmless infractions.
- bryanrasmussen 6y ago
  I remember that one of Spider Robinson's Callahan's crosstime saloon stories (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Callahan%27s_Crosstime_Saloon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Callahan%27s_Crosstime_Saloon) had a similar situation with a guy getting back from being a prisoner of war or in prison in solitary for a couple of decades and being in effect a stranded time traveler (somewhat fuzzy on the details as I read it probably about 40 years ago - ironically enough) I also recall that there was a little fandom controversy at the time where people complained that it wasn't really a time travel story and what was this jerk Spider Robinson trying to pull anyway!
  - dayofthedaleks 6y ago
    Somebody please identify this story!
    - bryanrasmussen 6y ago
      I'm pretty sure it's just called The Time Traveler https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Callahan%27s_Crosstime_Saloon#Stories https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Callahan%27s_Crosstime_Saloon#... it says almost all these stories were published in Analog, that's where I remember the controversy over its lack of the more fanciful sort of time travel fans back then were used to took place.
    - willowfine 6y ago
      Yes, it’s ”The time traveler”, first published in Analog, April 1974. Reprinted in the collection “Callahan’s Crosstime Saloon”, and in the meta-collection “The Callahan Chronicals”. Is shows how much cultural shift can take place in a decade: the protagonist is taken prisoner in 1963 and returns to a changed society in 1973. Highly recommended!
    - bryanrasmussen 6y ago
      when you asked this question I figured I'd send an email to Spider Robinson and ask - his response: ---------------- your memory works better than mine. It took me awhile to dig out the memory of what was the second Callahan's Place story I ever sold. Since it had been over a year since my first sale, and I'd collected 14 rejection slips since, it's a happy memory, which always helps. Yes, the story you remember was "The Time Traveler," if I'm remembering right. But the controversy part is just a bit of an exaggeration. I wish I could check my memory against Ben Bova's excellent one, but my recollection is, what actually happened was he got one or two letters complaining that that story was not science fiction. Ben wrote back to both that first of all, he felt it was, that science fiction did not necessarily have to contain machinery of any kind—just change—and concluded by saying, come on, you've got a complaint about one story out of the hundreds you've read here, and you threaten to cancel your subscription? You have that right, and I'm sorry you feel that way; have a nice day. Then he told me privately that he'd checked, and nobody had canceled their subscription. But it made a great story, so we both retold it over the years. I've said it before, and I'll say it again. As Dizzy Gillespie said about Charlie Parker, no Ben, no me. In his last years, he used to tell me he was starting to feel like one of the last legionnaires still defending Fort Zindeneuf, and now it's my turn. Thanks for reminding me what an uncannily lucky sumbitch I am and have been. —Spider ------------------- at the bottom he had the following inspirational quote We like believing the best because nothing needs to be done about it, and the worst, because nothing can. —James Richardson
neartheplain 6y ago
My first thought is how the prison system failed him. Computer literacy is a fundamental job skill in the 21st century, one that's relatively easily and inexpensively taught. I'd expect computer literacy programs in any prison system built around rehabilitation.
- Chris2048 6y ago
  yep, 30 years is enough time to pursue several degrees, let alone basic skills. What facilities do US prisons provide!?
  - hans1729 6y ago
    The US prison system isn't designed around rehabilitation, but around profit. Just like the US justice system isn't designed around justice, but around righteousness. The fact that us-amerian judges fund their own election campaigns underlines the absurdity, and yet it's just one facette in a reality that's going well beyond the satirical ideas spun towards the end of the last century. Sorry if I'm rambling a bit, I don't want to waste anyones time. It's just hard to swallow the delta between ought and is.
    - throwaway0a5e 6y ago
      >The fact that us-amerian judges fund their own election campaigns Whether judges are elected or appointed varies by state and the states with appointed judges do better at some things but not others.
  - neartheplain 6y ago
    I'm not an expert, but my impression is that most US prisons provide little in the way of true rehabilitation. Ironically, while computer skills courses may be unavailable, mobile devices (with Internet service!) are increasingly-common contraband items in US prisons: https://www.forbes.com/sites/walterpavlo/2020/04/19/will-cell-phones-be-the-downfall-of-prisons/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/walterpavlo/2020/04/19/will-cel...
- 6y ago
bitwize 6y ago
I saw a documentary on the personality-testing industry recently. They did an interview with an older chap fresh out of prison who was attending public job search classes, who said that when he went in. computers were running software from the 1980s and upon getting out he had to learn all about the "Google world" from scratch. It made me realize how fortunate I was: not only had I been exposed to the Google world from the outside, but had I been in prison all that time I could probably acclimate myself to it fairly easily upon leaving. I'd be outraged at the things the Google world does, but I'd have a clear head and shoulders advantage navigating it over someone who did not have my proclivity for all things computer. The Google-world guy stood out. I felt for him. The film's epilogue shows him successfully getting a job as a building supervisor, but what are we doing for people like him? Employment services in my state offer free computer courses to people seeking jobs, but is that enough? And are the services in other states more spotty?
- HenryBemis 6y ago
  Can please you share the imdb link/name of the documentary?
  - shishy 6y ago
    https://m.imdb.com/title/tt14173880/ https://m.imdb.com/title/tt14173880/ i believe that one
    - bitwize 6y ago
      That's the one.
      - HenryBemis 6y ago
        Thank you "Persona: The Dark Truth Behind Personality Tests (2021)" Exploring the unexpected origins of America's obsession with personality testing, this documentary takes a look at the profound ways that ideas about personality have formed the world around us.
julienreszka 6y ago
30 years without having to use tech is a privilege
Farbklex 6y ago
In contrast, I am sure we all know some older people who were not in prisson for the past 30 years and still don't know how to write an email, what a zoom call is or when it's appropriate to double-click vs single click items on a computer. I know people in their 50s who pretend that "they don't need this technology" or "I can just go to the bank if I need something". Sure, if you're in your 80s you might want to dodge most of the digital stuff. But in your 50s? You're gonna have to live with an increasing digitalization for multiple decades. Rant: If you are not an IT person and need to work with Excel and PowerPoint for the next 20 years then ffs sit down and learn the in-depth tools and tricks in the tools over the span of two weekends.
- tyingq 6y ago
  It seems to be ramping up now. It was only 4 years ago that my bank drastically cut the number of "real people" you can talk to at the bank, for example.
- refactor_master 6y ago
  That rant, wow. It really resonates deeply with me. People would rather cumulatively spend some 10000 hours yelling at Office for the rest of their lives, instead of spending 10 over the course of some evenings/weekends to brush up on the basics. Even from an immediate-more-important-priorities-perspective it almost doesn’t make sense to me.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - TeMPOraL 6y ago
    It's fractal, I see this even in the tech industry itself - people are reluctant to sit down with a manual for an hour to figure out how some software (or device) works, and prefer to forever call it "too complicated to use", just because they couldn't grok it in 30 seconds.
    - etrautmann 6y ago
davnn 6y ago
I can't imagine that prison life is so disconnected from the rest of society; it certainly isn't in Europe.
- tyingq 6y ago
  Depends on which prison in the US. Angola, in Lousiana, for example is pretty notorious for refusing medical care, recreation limited regularly, forced labor in the fields, etc. Edit: She mentions "Corrlinks" which provides a sort of "email" like service to Federal prisons. So this person was in a US Federal Prison.
  - tempest_ 6y ago
    I was just poking around the wiki for that place. Pretty crazy.
- meddlepal 6y ago
  The US prison system is all about punishment not rehabilitation. Theres a very strong “lock them up and throw away the key” mentality in many Americans view of justice.
  - elicash 6y ago
    The US prison system is about indifference and more like factory farming than inflicting punishment -- the negative effects are mostly a byproduct of high volume and costs. I got really into this issue maybe two years ago, and it's been pretty sickening to observe. Things like multiple states denying surgeries based on alleged "one good eye" policies. Replacing in-person visits with virtual ones. Sure, there's profit involved, of course. For example, there are pushes to get rid of prison libraries and their books and music and switch instead to tablet devices, so that the families of incarcerated people (those in prison might be making as little as literal pennies per hour) can be charged subscriptions by various companies. But even that is driven by costs involved in checking donated books for contraband. At the end of the day, we need to incarcerate fewer people for shorter periods of time -- and I'm not just talking about non-violent offenders, either. The person in this twitter thread served 30 years. Let's start there.
trymas 6y ago
Clearly wherever this is (US?) prisons are not about rehabilitation and inclusion back into society. Weren't there any classes? Books? Library? Computer rooms? It's complete failure of a justice system if person comes out of prison like from a time capsule. IMHO it may just increase recidivism - what can a person do in a "free" world if he/she were not let to know about the world outside prison walls?
- FpUser 6y ago
  >"IMHO it may just increase recidivism" Keeping people in prisons might be just what the US prison industrial complex wants.
  - Ccecil 6y ago
    Not sure why you got downvoted here. Private prisons are very much a thing in the US and in my state. Not to mention the Federal prison Industries https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Prison_Industries https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Prison_Industries Revenue $531,453,000 (2019) "Under current law, all physically able inmates who are not a security risk or have a health exception are required to work, either for UNICOR or at some other prison job.[4][12] Inmates earn from US$0.23 per hour up to a maximum of US$1.15 per hour, and all inmates with court-ordered financial obligations must use at least 50% of this UNICOR income to satisfy those debts" And that is just one of them...on the federal level...not state.
    - FpUser 6y ago
      >"Not sure why you got downvoted here" Some patriots probably got offended.
      - meowster 6y ago
        Please don't unnecessarily bring politics into the discussion. (It wasn't me, I don't have enough karma to downvote.)
Toutouxc 6y ago
While I agree that this is a huge failure of the prison system, I'm also convinced that it shouldn't take more than a month for an ex-convict to catch up with the average computer user. Most people I know are borderline computer illiterate. Even the educated ones.
- b_t_s 6y ago
  Borderline computer illiterate is a low bar(and probably an accurate assessment of average ability), but how are they supposed to clear that bar when they're fully computer illiterate and maybe, if they're lucky, can get occasional informal tutoring from someone who is only borderline computer illiterate? Maybe a month of proper lessons would do it at least for some. However, as a degreed professional, I've spent about 25 years fruitlessly trying to explain to my dad in every conceivable way "where it goes when you save it" and what a file is, so I suspect this is a massive hurdle for a decent percent of the population. There's a reason so many people are borderline computer illiterate.
- beowulfey 6y ago
  it sounds like this particular person did so and figured it out relatively quickly, based on the thread. the things being done were more complex than what some of my relatives can do.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
mlthoughts2018 6y ago
This long form Twitter stuff is so miserable. This seems like an interesting story, but I couldn’t read past the second segment. And no, Threader doesn’t solve it or help (even taking for granted the extremely unlikely assumption that I was willing to migrate the thread to another service and navigate to that other service just to read it). This is interesting in conjunction with the story itself, a man having a hard time adjusting to digital interfaces. So much of it is caused by the abject poorness of digital interfaces foisted on us that we just accept and stumble through.
ericcholis 6y ago
This seems like an area that the USDS might be able to contribute to.
DoreenMichele 6y ago
This can also be a problem for homeless people. If you are homeless and digitally savvy, the internet and a tablet or smartphone or laptop or even library card can be huge, huge assets that make homelessness vastly less burdensome. But for some homeless people, job hunting is a nightmare because they don't have the internet savvy and, on top of that, they don't own a laptop and they may not know they can get access to a computer at the library (at least when there isn't a pandemic on). Kudos to her for taking the time to do this. I don't know how to solve this, though I run some websites and what not aimed at trying to provide useful info to homeless people and people at risk of homelessness and I advocate to whatever degree I can for trying to get smartphones and the like into the hands of homeless individuals and people at risk (and people with prison records are at risk if you can't infer the obvious just from reading these tweets).
- lethologica 6y ago
  I've been going through something similar with my Mum recently. She's on the verge of homelessness and has a disability. In Australia, her job provider is supposed to help her find a job given her current situation. She has been there for nearly 4 year and no one there has been able to find her a job (I only just learned of this and have helped her to move from her current agency to another one that seems better equiped to help her) But, because she has no income (she is left with about $40 a fortnight after government assistance) she has had to cut off her internet connection, phone connection, and her ageing laptop of nearly 10 years has also completely died. Unfortunately, I didn't learn of this until just a few years ago, but even in that small gap of a few years between where she was able to still afford all of these vital services and bits of equipment and use them perfectly fine and by the time she couldn't, she grew completely disillusioned with technology and has an extremely difficult time in using even basic smart phones. On top of that, it is almost impossible for her to apply for jobs through this device. Trying to teach her how to write up a cover letter on the Google Docs Android app was impossible. It has really opened my eyes and taught me to be a lot more patient and empathetic with people struggling with modern technology. It feels like a lot of these improvements are supposed to make our lives easier, for for a few, it does nothing but make it harder and I don't know how to solve this problem or if it even can be. Are these people just to be left behind?
austincheney 6y ago
Twitter is such a horrible venue for a blog.
ballenf 6y ago
Unpopular opinion: I think government services and offices should remain offline-first forever. They should offer online equivalents, but they should never assume or require digital adoption. I think this has two big benefits: - Minor point: Greater resilience to downtime, interruptions to service - Major point: a check on becoming a faceless entity with no exposure to the public. Think Google or FB if you get flagged. If there's a number you can call or an office you can go to and a guarantee of service via those modalities, it provides at least a modicum of accountability.
- throwaway0a5e 6y ago
  The ship has already sailed on the major point. It really doesn't help that both the high level administrators, the unions and a non-trivial amount of the public push things in the direction of bureaucrats just being cogs in the machine with no agency.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- PragmaticPulp 6y ago
  Government services are available offline or via phone as well. The government has some of the strictest accessibility requirements for everything they do. It’s one of the reasons that it’s so expensive to roll out new government services. People are directed to the online versions first because it’s fastest for everyone involved. We should be pushing everyone toward efficient online self-service first, while leaving the limited in person and call staff to handle the rare cases who need them. The mistake here was that the person was only informed of the online version, rather than being told where to go or who to call to handle this offline.
  - mankyd 6y ago
    > We should be pushing everyone toward efficient online self-service first I was with you until that statement. If we push online, self-service first, then the offline, in person services will languish. This is what OP was driving at. Establish effective offline services _first_, with the intention of online, self-service, and you will end up in a place that better serves everyone.
zie1ony 6y ago
"he officially Zoomed as a free person"... not! Zoom is not e2e encrypted.
- igarcia 6y ago
  Zoom is proprietary software, so it's another kind of prison. It would be good to try and free him from this soon and use Libre Software. :)
JxLS-cpgbe0 6y ago
> Everything was hard--the icons & cursor, the touchpad, hovering over something for options, closing and opening tabs This is part of what "accessibility" covers, it's not just providing alternative text for images. A11y also deals with overcoming cognitive barriers, for example people with ADD benefit from a clear, easy-to-follow hierarchy of information. For this person (and many others) accessible means easy to learn, and easy to follow.
fallat 6y ago
Computer technology is naturally unusable.
AcerbicZero 6y ago
It’s in fathomable that the government would put a person in jail for 30 years and dump them back into society without even a PowerPoint briefing on the state of the world. Isn’t incarceration a two way street? If government takes away (for good reason or not) your personal freedom aren’t they liable for your well-being during that time? And more importantly, responsible for the person “their” system returns to society at large?
- 95014_refugee 6y ago
  Morally? It certainly seems like it. Practically? If there is no accountability, no loop closure on the delivery of such a thing, then no.
drfritznunkie 6y ago
I don't think anyone has any idea how disorientating tech can be until they've witness this for themselves. Also how hostile and large a divide tech creates that the industry doesn't give a damn about (I'm looking at you, Material Design and your crap low contrast fonts and lack of clear clickable buttons that has resulted in more support calls from my aging parents than probably anything else). Anyhow, a neighborhood homeless man and I became friends and I'd help him out with $$ and food and drink from time to time. We'd hang out and I get to hear stories of all the crazy shit he'd seen in the past 40 years in the neighborhood, from growing up through the civil rights era and seeing the city burn in 68, to the lines of people around the block waiting to buy crack at Rayful Emmonds grandmothers house. He'd been in and out of jail, run with gangs, the full nine yards. After getting hit by a drunk driver on his way to holdup a liquor store to get money to buy his new baby diapers, he'd ended up on the streets with nothing but his stories and a bum leg. Along the way, he told me about his wife and children, his stint at the Navy shipyards in Virginia Beach, and his childhood in North Carolina. He told me about how one day he'd love to travel back to his childhood home town and see his mother, who he'd purchased his childhood home for with the proceeds from his successful dealings at the shipyards. One day, he mentioned he'd gotten some money and wanted to send his mother flowers, but he couldn't remember what the address was. I asked if he remembered how to get to the house, and he said he did, so I grabbed my laptop, opened up Street View in the center of the town and asked him which way to go. I've never experienced quite such a reaction in my life. This was black magic fuckery to him and he thought I was using some secret government technology. I explained to him the general principles of it, and he just didn't believe it. Incredulous wouldn't describe a tenth of his reaction. That reaction wasn't anything compared to when we finally found his mothers house. He couldn't believe that he was looking at the house he grew up in, had purchased for his mother and that he'd not seen probably 30+ years. He teared up looking at it and got quite emotional. I offered to find her phone number so that he could call her, but it was too much for him at the time, and he waved it off. He eventually got housing through a city program, and I lost touch with him as he stopped frequenting the neighborhood. Old Dirty, if you're still out there, I miss your company and stories and hope you're doing well!
fuball63 6y ago
I'm sure many people here have experienced frustration helping older relatives or friends use computers. Recently though, I realized, that computers are just way too hard to use. In our pursuit to avoid cryptic black screens with command prompts, a user must now understand that their computer has Windows with all of its menus and functions, a browser window with all of its menus and functions, running a webapp, with all of its menus and functions. Whenever functionality bleeds into other layers ("how do I print this pdf file"), it is a huge hassle trying to explain "oh, it's not that print button, its this other print button". It makes me sad to think that people prefer their "appliance computers" (phones, tablets, chromebooks) over real computers, but I can hardly blame them.
- Macha 6y ago
  Even appliance computers are not immune to this. Had an elderly neighbour asking for help after struggling to forward a message sent by one contact on whatsapp to another contact on facebook. Having to explain: > Well there's usually an icon that looks like this, and sometimes it will bring up the android share menu, but sometimes it opens up something that only shows you contact in that app, and having someone on facebook is not the same as on whatsapp. > And oh look, apparently whatsapp and/or facebook has a bug where you select to share the video and you end up at the whatsapp contact screen but selecting a contact loses the video. > Well I guess you can go into your gallery and share from there. That seems to work. But not every app is going to expose its images in your gallery. And it became clear that even the simple devices aren't.
  - pmarreck 6y ago
    > Well there's usually an icon that looks like this, and sometimes it will bring up the android share menu, but sometimes it opens up something that only shows you contact in that app, and having someone on facebook is not the same as on whatsapp. Back in my day, Apple had something called the Human Interface Guidelines and they adhered to them religiously, and IMHO it made computing a lot more approachable for a neophyte, compared to the mess we have today with "hamburger menus" vs. "triple-dot menus" (REALLY??), no general way to access the settings of any app, no general way to do anything really save for typing in text (and sometimes not even then!) Instagram and Snapchat (the worst offender here, you literally won't learn some inputs unless someone tells you about them!) have not made anything better.
sadbutttru 6y ago
The digital world is its own prison with various wardens and cell blocks and so many rules that you will be kept in prison for breaking them without knowing.
gorpomon 6y ago
As a society we're just not being real about our digital divides. Your digital ability goes up and down in life, and the web HAS to be accessible to you at those lower points of ability: While caring for (or just carrying) a child. After an injury or stroke that limits your mobility. Living with chronic conditions. Changing technology or losing access to your go-to tools. Traveling to areas with a digital divide in some way. And many more... We've made the case for the for some sets differently abled people-- I'm hard pressed to find a developer who doesn't consider keyboard navigability for those who can't use a mouse-- but you need to rethink interactions at a base level and we're just getting started with that. There's a lot of work to do here.
kyooyk 6y ago
I really think the point is not how long it might take someone to learn how to use tools, but the impacts of prison. I work with these folks through my company to help them become employed upon release. A few things, it is astounding but believable that when people are released they enter a world that is entirely unknown to them. Not only technology but their relationships and neighborhoods are completely different. In addition,They have no reliable way of getting back on their feet. They usually have zero money, no housing and no job - and there is why you have high recidivism rates. Not only that, but no one wants to hire justice involved individuals, even though significant tax credits are available for doing so - Walmart for example, takes extreme advantage of these. The training programs in prisons will train someone up to a certification, but fall short of letting them get that certification. People have completed their GED maybe 5 times inside serving sentences at different times because doing so can reduce their sentence, it doesn’t help them in any other way. Without the ability to access training for in demand skills, many of these individuals get temp service jobs as flagged for construction for example. Doesn’t make sense to me that we want to rehab people yet minimal opportunities inside are provided to break the cycle. Realize this. People serve a sent and then they are eligible for parole. Many people opt to serve their parole inside, rather than outside. I’ve been told they feel it is easier inside than out.
- jimmaswell 6y ago
  Shawshank Redemption did a great job showing a lot of this.
- anonymousiam 6y ago
  I've never served time, but from what I understand, the burdens associated with being on parole (check ins, drug tests, danger of associating with the wrong people, etc.) are so onerous that many prefer to serve the full sentence so that when they get out, they are not on parole. I would probably make the same choice.
  - mike00632 6y ago
    I learned only recently that people on parole have to pay for parole. All of the mandatory meetings and drugs tests are paid by the parolee. What happens if they can't pay?-- back to prison. It's brutal.
zwischenzug 6y ago
I wrote a similar thread a while back while helping my 70-year old neighbour: https://twitter.com/ianmiell/status/1299742361854054401 https://twitter.com/ianmiell/status/1299742361854054401 """One example of the insanity: "Enter mobile number to register" OK, 0793... "You already have an account with that number" "Enter mobile number to get recovery details" OK, 0793... "You do not have an account with that number" Turns out you have to put 44793..."""
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
Balgair 6y ago
Aside: While we're on the subject of incarcerated education, please consider donating time or resources to your local incarcerated people. The American Library Association has a good list of book donation programs here: https://libguides.ala.org/book-donations/bookstoprisons https://libguides.ala.org/book-donations/bookstoprisons After the pandemic subsides (whenever that may be), the Bureau of Prisons has a guide on how to help out the recently/incarcerated here: https://www.bop.gov/jobs/volunteer.jsp https://www.bop.gov/jobs/volunteer.jsp Here's a good piece on how a volunteer can help save lives (maybe this can be you!): https://prisonwriters.com/prison-volunteers/ https://prisonwriters.com/prison-volunteers/
Ccecil 6y ago
After briefly reading the comments I decided to chime in a little bit. First, 30 years on the inside...crazy. I don't think it is possible to put that in perspective. Cellphones were uncommon, the internet was still using "prodigy" and the likes, pagers were the "in thing". Forget trying to use the internet...these people have issues with the "number of decisions" in the grocery store (it is one of those areas where people quite literally freeze up, if you don't know feel free to look up the commissary options this person has had for 30 years). Nothing looks the same, not neighborhoods, cars, clothing, people... You have been staring at guards for the last 30 years and an PA announcement has told you when/where to move and when to eat. Every day has been on repeat... Now...30 years has passed and they let you out. What do you do...nothing but choices and a nearly constant flood of situations and experiences which you don't fully understand. Every task is something new to learn. And if you ask for help you are likely going to need to explain why you don't understand this stuff which may cause those people who were willing to help to second guess themselves and/or judge you. You have nothing...assume your family/friends have mostly moved on (this happens even when you are not in prison often) and your only hope to have enough to get back on your feet is to fill out the mountains of forms required to get a portion of what you really need to live. Now imagine your only way to get those forms is to use the internet...it is very fortunate this person had a case worker who was willing to spend the time to help...many don't. There is a non-zero amount of recidivism which is intentional. People get out and then decide the world moved on without them. They were better off not having choices or options they did not understand. Often, the hoops of parole are too much and they prefer to "top out" their time so they are not required to do things like keep a job which has paystubs (often you get paid way more under the table, as well as having bosses who don't undervalue your pay due to your criminal past), or find proper housing (halfway houses are required often for parole if you do not have someone who will vouch for you in a written letter). Not to mention that staying sober is hard at times, decide to get drunk on the wrong night or share a joint with someone and you are likely to face repercussions from your Parole officer. It is a difficult situation. I have nothing but the utmost respect for the case manager. She very likely kept this person from either reoffending or worse killing themselves. The programs on the inside are often not the best (depends on the state, program, and facility...some are private). If you think there is any way you can or would like to help in this situation maybe get in touch with some of the halfway houses or probation offices in your area. Your tech skills and abilities to navigate paperwork are much more valuable than you might understand. From there...you could look into possibly helping inside the prisons too (there may be other restrictions). Maybe even just look into mailing some books to the library there (last I checked they had to be shipped in by the vendor/bookstore). That book on Python may very well be the thing that changes their life...and possibly society.
srswtf123 6y ago
The US government has gotten around its prohibition on “cruel and unusual punishment” in two ways. First, it outsourced the cruelty to private businesses, who are not prohibited in the same way. Second, in instances where it cannot be outsourced, they simply make their cruelty usual and commonplace, neatly skirting the requirement it be unusual. The prison system is an example of both.
jimmaswell 6y ago
If this person can learn all this so fast then our parents who ask how to put a file in an email or change their TV's input source for the 50th time, not making any attempt to retain the information because they know we'll be their crutch, have zero excuse. It's disgusting. Good on this guy.
dagorenouf 6y ago
Why did she get him a computer tough, it's the most complex machine there is to access the web. Just an iPhone or iPad would have been better. Children and old people usually fare better with these than with normal "computers".
pradn 6y ago
I remember my grandfather asking me why the newspaper website went down when he pressed the up button and up when he pressed the down button. I had no answer. And it was the only thing keeping him not bored as he spent a year in American suburbs, away from the warmth of whole community he's lived with all his life. It's hard for us realize all the random things we've learned over the years to live in the digital era.
- cestith 6y ago
  I'm guessing this was on a Mac. Apple calls it "Natural scroll direction". If so, go to the Apple menu -> System Preferences -> Mouse and uncheck the box labeled "scroll direction: Natural".
  - kubanczyk 6y ago
    Parent did not write anything about a mouse. Up/down arrow keys work like this on every notable browser, every notable platform. Up arrow makes the content go down.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
grumple 6y ago
~17 years ago when I was in high school, my senior project was teaching old folks how to use computers. It was much harder than I expected. Clicking a mouse was something they just didn't understand - they used their whole hand! Had to get them to use just a finger. Many other concepts were difficult to convey as well. I think things have changed a lot since then (we have drastically better widespread tech literacy now), but it was an enlightening experience.
- macintux 6y ago
  I taught a computer lab at a local university a few years before that and discovered through one unhappy encounter with an angry student a key attribute that I’d failed to apprehend previously. This student wanted to know exactly what to do when he encountered an error. I showed him my thought process for how I’d work my way back to a good known state and he was enraged. Computer literacy is in no small part a willingness to experiment and be unafraid of what can happen (or at least enough basic knowledge to know how to avoid the really sharp edges that can in fact cause harm). It’s a very difficult thing to teach.
Zelphyr 6y ago
My uncle spent some time in prison in the late 80's and early 90's and was able to learn FoxPro while there. In addition to it being hard to find work having a criminal record, by the time he got out, everybody was transitioning away from FoxPro. As is too often the case, the lure of money from selling drugs combined with not being able to find work meant he returned to prison. He got out again in the early-mid 2000's and this time around, there were no courses offered for study. When he got out that time, he didn't even know how to use the TV remote. One day, history will look back on how we treat our prisoners with immense shame. Instead of trying to rehabilitate them, we leave them to rot, and politicians never shy away from an opportunity to make the lives of prisoners more miserable, lest they risk being called "soft" on crime.
nix23 6y ago
What is that for a shit country that cant prepare the prisoners for a live in the open without having to fall back into old patterns?
ChrisArchitect 6y ago
all this rambling about bank systems and ATMs and stuff aside, this is a sad story about a guy locked up that did his time and never got any computer skills all these years and it's sad.

30 years, so he would have went into prison in 1991. Wow, yeah, I can imagine getting out would have been a surreal experience.

HenryBemis 6y ago
To that point, I was thinking that.. in some countries, even if you are jailed for murder, after some time served, you may request and can be allowed to take some 'leave' (24/48h). Didn't he get the chance to take any such 'leaves' in the US? I honestly don't know US Justice system. Would there be the chance that his crime was so severe to not be allowed to get a leave at all for 30 years?
- tyingq 6y ago
  "Didn't he get the chance to take any such 'leaves' in the US?" Probably not. I'm sure some programs exist like that, but it's complicated. In the US, most prisoners are in State, not Federal prisons. Every state, and even every prison, has different programs and rules. Also, in general, US culture views prison as pure punishment and not rehabilitation.
- caseyscottmckay 6y ago
  Leaves from prison (felons) are not common in the U.S. Leaves from jail (misdemeanors) are more common (e.g., leave for work during the day, then back to jail after work).
- technothrasher 6y ago
  There have been some cases in the US of violent criminals being given furlough and committing further violent crimes while out. This has tended to reduce furlough opportunities here.
- liuhenry 6y ago
  I grew up in the US and (unfortunately) this was the first time I'd heard of such a concept. I did some research and "prison furloughs" became a key political issue in the 1988 US presidential election [1]. The federal prison system now only allows non-emergency furloughs for inmates if they are within 2 years of their release/parole date, and who did not commit a violent crime. Prison furlough programs existed in all 50 states in the 1980s, and "almost 10 percent of state and federal prisoners received a furlough in 1987". [2][3] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolving_Door_(advertisement) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolving_Door_(advertisement) [2] https://www.nytimes.com/1988/10/12/us/study-says-53000-got-prison-furloughs-in-87-and-few-did-harm.html https://www.nytimes.com/1988/10/12/us/study-says-53000-got-p... [3] https://www.themarshallproject.org/2015/05/13/willie-horton-revisited https://www.themarshallproject.org/2015/05/13/willie-horton-...
- b_t_s 6y ago
  From an American perspective that's like giving the lion at the zoo a 24 hour leave to stroll around the city. It's so obviously absurd almost nobody would ever think of it unprompted. Many of the higher security prisons here are brutal dangerous paces. Sentences are long, often lifelong. Surviving a 30 year sentence without committing further crimes in prison that add to your sentence isn't so easy. Anybody with significant time left on their 30 year sentence would be a fool not to flee if given a 24 hour leave. Some of the low security prisons do have some resources focused on rehabilitation. But a lot of the higher security ones where most serious/violent/drug convicts end up are essentially warehouses for storing people who can't legally be executed until they're old and feeble enough to be released "safely" as pensioners/disabled/homeless. There's a reason criminal justice reform is such a big deal. Much of the country wishes we could dispense with the warehousing and just execute them all. While another contingent is very much tired of being thrown into those warehouses to rot based on race/socioeconomic status/the size of their bag of weed or a variety of other relatively harmless infractions.
bryanrasmussen 6y ago
I remember that one of Spider Robinson's Callahan's crosstime saloon stories (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Callahan%27s_Crosstime_Saloon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Callahan%27s_Crosstime_Saloon) had a similar situation with a guy getting back from being a prisoner of war or in prison in solitary for a couple of decades and being in effect a stranded time traveler (somewhat fuzzy on the details as I read it probably about 40 years ago - ironically enough) I also recall that there was a little fandom controversy at the time where people complained that it wasn't really a time travel story and what was this jerk Spider Robinson trying to pull anyway!
- dayofthedaleks 6y ago
  Somebody please identify this story!
  - bryanrasmussen 6y ago
    I'm pretty sure it's just called The Time Traveler https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Callahan%27s_Crosstime_Saloon#Stories https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Callahan%27s_Crosstime_Saloon#... it says almost all these stories were published in Analog, that's where I remember the controversy over its lack of the more fanciful sort of time travel fans back then were used to took place.
  - willowfine 6y ago
    Yes, it’s ”The time traveler”, first published in Analog, April 1974. Reprinted in the collection “Callahan’s Crosstime Saloon”, and in the meta-collection “The Callahan Chronicals”. Is shows how much cultural shift can take place in a decade: the protagonist is taken prisoner in 1963 and returns to a changed society in 1973. Highly recommended!
  - bryanrasmussen 6y ago
    when you asked this question I figured I'd send an email to Spider Robinson and ask - his response: ---------------- your memory works better than mine. It took me awhile to dig out the memory of what was the second Callahan's Place story I ever sold. Since it had been over a year since my first sale, and I'd collected 14 rejection slips since, it's a happy memory, which always helps. Yes, the story you remember was "The Time Traveler," if I'm remembering right. But the controversy part is just a bit of an exaggeration. I wish I could check my memory against Ben Bova's excellent one, but my recollection is, what actually happened was he got one or two letters complaining that that story was not science fiction. Ben wrote back to both that first of all, he felt it was, that science fiction did not necessarily have to contain machinery of any kind—just change—and concluded by saying, come on, you've got a complaint about one story out of the hundreds you've read here, and you threaten to cancel your subscription? You have that right, and I'm sorry you feel that way; have a nice day. Then he told me privately that he'd checked, and nobody had canceled their subscription. But it made a great story, so we both retold it over the years. I've said it before, and I'll say it again. As Dizzy Gillespie said about Charlie Parker, no Ben, no me. In his last years, he used to tell me he was starting to feel like one of the last legionnaires still defending Fort Zindeneuf, and now it's my turn. Thanks for reminding me what an uncannily lucky sumbitch I am and have been. —Spider ------------------- at the bottom he had the following inspirational quote We like believing the best because nothing needs to be done about it, and the worst, because nothing can. —James Richardson

neartheplain 6y ago

My first thought is how the prison system failed him. Computer literacy is a fundamental job skill in the 21st century, one that's relatively easily and inexpensively taught. I'd expect computer literacy programs in any prison system built around rehabilitation.

Chris2048 6y ago
yep, 30 years is enough time to pursue several degrees, let alone basic skills. What facilities do US prisons provide!?
- hans1729 6y ago
  The US prison system isn't designed around rehabilitation, but around profit. Just like the US justice system isn't designed around justice, but around righteousness. The fact that us-amerian judges fund their own election campaigns underlines the absurdity, and yet it's just one facette in a reality that's going well beyond the satirical ideas spun towards the end of the last century. Sorry if I'm rambling a bit, I don't want to waste anyones time. It's just hard to swallow the delta between ought and is.
  - throwaway0a5e 6y ago
    >The fact that us-amerian judges fund their own election campaigns Whether judges are elected or appointed varies by state and the states with appointed judges do better at some things but not others.
- neartheplain 6y ago
  I'm not an expert, but my impression is that most US prisons provide little in the way of true rehabilitation. Ironically, while computer skills courses may be unavailable, mobile devices (with Internet service!) are increasingly-common contraband items in US prisons: https://www.forbes.com/sites/walterpavlo/2020/04/19/will-cell-phones-be-the-downfall-of-prisons/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/walterpavlo/2020/04/19/will-cel...
6y ago

bitwize 6y ago

I saw a documentary on the personality-testing industry recently. They did an interview with an older chap fresh out of prison who was attending public job search classes, who said that when he went in. computers were running software from the 1980s and upon getting out he had to learn all about the "Google world" from scratch. It made me realize how fortunate I was: not only had I been exposed to the Google world from the outside, but had I been in prison all that time I could probably acclimate myself to it fairly easily upon leaving. I'd be outraged at the things the Google world does, but I'd have a clear head and shoulders advantage navigating it over someone who did not have my proclivity for all things computer. The Google-world guy stood out. I felt for him. The film's epilogue shows him successfully getting a job as a building supervisor, but what are we doing for people like him? Employment services in my state offer free computer courses to people seeking jobs, but is that enough? And are the services in other states more spotty?

HenryBemis 6y ago
Can please you share the imdb link/name of the documentary?
- shishy 6y ago
  https://m.imdb.com/title/tt14173880/ https://m.imdb.com/title/tt14173880/ i believe that one
  - bitwize 6y ago
    That's the one.
    - HenryBemis 6y ago
      Thank you "Persona: The Dark Truth Behind Personality Tests (2021)" Exploring the unexpected origins of America's obsession with personality testing, this documentary takes a look at the profound ways that ideas about personality have formed the world around us.

julienreszka 6y ago

30 years without having to use tech is a privilege

Farbklex 6y ago

In contrast, I am sure we all know some older people who were not in prisson for the past 30 years and still don't know how to write an email, what a zoom call is or when it's appropriate to double-click vs single click items on a computer. I know people in their 50s who pretend that "they don't need this technology" or "I can just go to the bank if I need something". Sure, if you're in your 80s you might want to dodge most of the digital stuff. But in your 50s? You're gonna have to live with an increasing digitalization for multiple decades. Rant: If you are not an IT person and need to work with Excel and PowerPoint for the next 20 years then ffs sit down and learn the in-depth tools and tricks in the tools over the span of two weekends.

tyingq 6y ago
It seems to be ramping up now. It was only 4 years ago that my bank drastically cut the number of "real people" you can talk to at the bank, for example.
refactor_master 6y ago
That rant, wow. It really resonates deeply with me. People would rather cumulatively spend some 10000 hours yelling at Office for the rest of their lives, instead of spending 10 over the course of some evenings/weekends to brush up on the basics. Even from an immediate-more-important-priorities-perspective it almost doesn’t make sense to me.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- TeMPOraL 6y ago
  It's fractal, I see this even in the tech industry itself - people are reluctant to sit down with a manual for an hour to figure out how some software (or device) works, and prefer to forever call it "too complicated to use", just because they couldn't grok it in 30 seconds.
  - etrautmann 6y ago

davnn 6y ago

I can't imagine that prison life is so disconnected from the rest of society; it certainly isn't in Europe.

tyingq 6y ago
Depends on which prison in the US. Angola, in Lousiana, for example is pretty notorious for refusing medical care, recreation limited regularly, forced labor in the fields, etc. Edit: She mentions "Corrlinks" which provides a sort of "email" like service to Federal prisons. So this person was in a US Federal Prison.
- tempest_ 6y ago
  I was just poking around the wiki for that place. Pretty crazy.
meddlepal 6y ago
The US prison system is all about punishment not rehabilitation. Theres a very strong “lock them up and throw away the key” mentality in many Americans view of justice.
- elicash 6y ago
  The US prison system is about indifference and more like factory farming than inflicting punishment -- the negative effects are mostly a byproduct of high volume and costs. I got really into this issue maybe two years ago, and it's been pretty sickening to observe. Things like multiple states denying surgeries based on alleged "one good eye" policies. Replacing in-person visits with virtual ones. Sure, there's profit involved, of course. For example, there are pushes to get rid of prison libraries and their books and music and switch instead to tablet devices, so that the families of incarcerated people (those in prison might be making as little as literal pennies per hour) can be charged subscriptions by various companies. But even that is driven by costs involved in checking donated books for contraband. At the end of the day, we need to incarcerate fewer people for shorter periods of time -- and I'm not just talking about non-violent offenders, either. The person in this twitter thread served 30 years. Let's start there.

trymas 6y ago

Clearly wherever this is (US?) prisons are not about rehabilitation and inclusion back into society. Weren't there any classes? Books? Library? Computer rooms? It's complete failure of a justice system if person comes out of prison like from a time capsule. IMHO it may just increase recidivism - what can a person do in a "free" world if he/she were not let to know about the world outside prison walls?

FpUser 6y ago
>"IMHO it may just increase recidivism" Keeping people in prisons might be just what the US prison industrial complex wants.
- Ccecil 6y ago
  Not sure why you got downvoted here. Private prisons are very much a thing in the US and in my state. Not to mention the Federal prison Industries https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Prison_Industries https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Prison_Industries Revenue $531,453,000 (2019) "Under current law, all physically able inmates who are not a security risk or have a health exception are required to work, either for UNICOR or at some other prison job.[4][12] Inmates earn from US$0.23 per hour up to a maximum of US$1.15 per hour, and all inmates with court-ordered financial obligations must use at least 50% of this UNICOR income to satisfy those debts" And that is just one of them...on the federal level...not state.
  - FpUser 6y ago
    >"Not sure why you got downvoted here" Some patriots probably got offended.
    - meowster 6y ago
      Please don't unnecessarily bring politics into the discussion. (It wasn't me, I don't have enough karma to downvote.)

Toutouxc 6y ago

While I agree that this is a huge failure of the prison system, I'm also convinced that it shouldn't take more than a month for an ex-convict to catch up with the average computer user. Most people I know are borderline computer illiterate. Even the educated ones.

b_t_s 6y ago
Borderline computer illiterate is a low bar(and probably an accurate assessment of average ability), but how are they supposed to clear that bar when they're fully computer illiterate and maybe, if they're lucky, can get occasional informal tutoring from someone who is only borderline computer illiterate? Maybe a month of proper lessons would do it at least for some. However, as a degreed professional, I've spent about 25 years fruitlessly trying to explain to my dad in every conceivable way "where it goes when you save it" and what a file is, so I suspect this is a massive hurdle for a decent percent of the population. There's a reason so many people are borderline computer illiterate.
beowulfey 6y ago
it sounds like this particular person did so and figured it out relatively quickly, based on the thread. the things being done were more complex than what some of my relatives can do.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

mlthoughts2018 6y ago

This long form Twitter stuff is so miserable. This seems like an interesting story, but I couldn’t read past the second segment. And no, Threader doesn’t solve it or help (even taking for granted the extremely unlikely assumption that I was willing to migrate the thread to another service and navigate to that other service just to read it). This is interesting in conjunction with the story itself, a man having a hard time adjusting to digital interfaces. So much of it is caused by the abject poorness of digital interfaces foisted on us that we just accept and stumble through.

ericcholis 6y ago

This seems like an area that the USDS might be able to contribute to.

DoreenMichele 6y ago

This can also be a problem for homeless people. If you are homeless and digitally savvy, the internet and a tablet or smartphone or laptop or even library card can be huge, huge assets that make homelessness vastly less burdensome. But for some homeless people, job hunting is a nightmare because they don't have the internet savvy and, on top of that, they don't own a laptop and they may not know they can get access to a computer at the library (at least when there isn't a pandemic on). Kudos to her for taking the time to do this. I don't know how to solve this, though I run some websites and what not aimed at trying to provide useful info to homeless people and people at risk of homelessness and I advocate to whatever degree I can for trying to get smartphones and the like into the hands of homeless individuals and people at risk (and people with prison records are at risk if you can't infer the obvious just from reading these tweets).

lethologica 6y ago
I've been going through something similar with my Mum recently. She's on the verge of homelessness and has a disability. In Australia, her job provider is supposed to help her find a job given her current situation. She has been there for nearly 4 year and no one there has been able to find her a job (I only just learned of this and have helped her to move from her current agency to another one that seems better equiped to help her) But, because she has no income (she is left with about $40 a fortnight after government assistance) she has had to cut off her internet connection, phone connection, and her ageing laptop of nearly 10 years has also completely died. Unfortunately, I didn't learn of this until just a few years ago, but even in that small gap of a few years between where she was able to still afford all of these vital services and bits of equipment and use them perfectly fine and by the time she couldn't, she grew completely disillusioned with technology and has an extremely difficult time in using even basic smart phones. On top of that, it is almost impossible for her to apply for jobs through this device. Trying to teach her how to write up a cover letter on the Google Docs Android app was impossible. It has really opened my eyes and taught me to be a lot more patient and empathetic with people struggling with modern technology. It feels like a lot of these improvements are supposed to make our lives easier, for for a few, it does nothing but make it harder and I don't know how to solve this problem or if it even can be. Are these people just to be left behind?

austincheney 6y ago

Twitter is such a horrible venue for a blog.

ballenf 6y ago

Unpopular opinion: I think government services and offices should remain offline-first forever. They should offer online equivalents, but they should never assume or require digital adoption. I think this has two big benefits: - Minor point: Greater resilience to downtime, interruptions to service - Major point: a check on becoming a faceless entity with no exposure to the public. Think Google or FB if you get flagged. If there's a number you can call or an office you can go to and a guarantee of service via those modalities, it provides at least a modicum of accountability.

throwaway0a5e 6y ago
The ship has already sailed on the major point. It really doesn't help that both the high level administrators, the unions and a non-trivial amount of the public push things in the direction of bureaucrats just being cogs in the machine with no agency.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
PragmaticPulp 6y ago
Government services are available offline or via phone as well. The government has some of the strictest accessibility requirements for everything they do. It’s one of the reasons that it’s so expensive to roll out new government services. People are directed to the online versions first because it’s fastest for everyone involved. We should be pushing everyone toward efficient online self-service first, while leaving the limited in person and call staff to handle the rare cases who need them. The mistake here was that the person was only informed of the online version, rather than being told where to go or who to call to handle this offline.
- mankyd 6y ago
  > We should be pushing everyone toward efficient online self-service first I was with you until that statement. If we push online, self-service first, then the offline, in person services will languish. This is what OP was driving at. Establish effective offline services _first_, with the intention of online, self-service, and you will end up in a place that better serves everyone.

zie1ony 6y ago

"he officially Zoomed as a free person"... not! Zoom is not e2e encrypted.

igarcia 6y ago
Zoom is proprietary software, so it's another kind of prison. It would be good to try and free him from this soon and use Libre Software. :)

JxLS-cpgbe0 6y ago

> Everything was hard--the icons & cursor, the touchpad, hovering over something for options, closing and opening tabs This is part of what "accessibility" covers, it's not just providing alternative text for images. A11y also deals with overcoming cognitive barriers, for example people with ADD benefit from a clear, easy-to-follow hierarchy of information. For this person (and many others) accessible means easy to learn, and easy to follow.

fallat 6y ago

Computer technology is naturally unusable.

AcerbicZero 6y ago

It’s in fathomable that the government would put a person in jail for 30 years and dump them back into society without even a PowerPoint briefing on the state of the world. Isn’t incarceration a two way street? If government takes away (for good reason or not) your personal freedom aren’t they liable for your well-being during that time? And more importantly, responsible for the person “their” system returns to society at large?

95014_refugee 6y ago
Morally? It certainly seems like it. Practically? If there is no accountability, no loop closure on the delivery of such a thing, then no.

drfritznunkie 6y ago

I don't think anyone has any idea how disorientating tech can be until they've witness this for themselves. Also how hostile and large a divide tech creates that the industry doesn't give a damn about (I'm looking at you, Material Design and your crap low contrast fonts and lack of clear clickable buttons that has resulted in more support calls from my aging parents than probably anything else). Anyhow, a neighborhood homeless man and I became friends and I'd help him out with $$ and food and drink from time to time. We'd hang out and I get to hear stories of all the crazy shit he'd seen in the past 40 years in the neighborhood, from growing up through the civil rights era and seeing the city burn in 68, to the lines of people around the block waiting to buy crack at Rayful Emmonds grandmothers house. He'd been in and out of jail, run with gangs, the full nine yards. After getting hit by a drunk driver on his way to holdup a liquor store to get money to buy his new baby diapers, he'd ended up on the streets with nothing but his stories and a bum leg. Along the way, he told me about his wife and children, his stint at the Navy shipyards in Virginia Beach, and his childhood in North Carolina. He told me about how one day he'd love to travel back to his childhood home town and see his mother, who he'd purchased his childhood home for with the proceeds from his successful dealings at the shipyards. One day, he mentioned he'd gotten some money and wanted to send his mother flowers, but he couldn't remember what the address was. I asked if he remembered how to get to the house, and he said he did, so I grabbed my laptop, opened up Street View in the center of the town and asked him which way to go. I've never experienced quite such a reaction in my life. This was black magic fuckery to him and he thought I was using some secret government technology. I explained to him the general principles of it, and he just didn't believe it. Incredulous wouldn't describe a tenth of his reaction. That reaction wasn't anything compared to when we finally found his mothers house. He couldn't believe that he was looking at the house he grew up in, had purchased for his mother and that he'd not seen probably 30+ years. He teared up looking at it and got quite emotional. I offered to find her phone number so that he could call her, but it was too much for him at the time, and he waved it off. He eventually got housing through a city program, and I lost touch with him as he stopped frequenting the neighborhood. Old Dirty, if you're still out there, I miss your company and stories and hope you're doing well!

fuball63 6y ago

I'm sure many people here have experienced frustration helping older relatives or friends use computers. Recently though, I realized, that computers are just way too hard to use. In our pursuit to avoid cryptic black screens with command prompts, a user must now understand that their computer has Windows with all of its menus and functions, a browser window with all of its menus and functions, running a webapp, with all of its menus and functions. Whenever functionality bleeds into other layers ("how do I print this pdf file"), it is a huge hassle trying to explain "oh, it's not that print button, its this other print button". It makes me sad to think that people prefer their "appliance computers" (phones, tablets, chromebooks) over real computers, but I can hardly blame them.

Macha 6y ago
Even appliance computers are not immune to this. Had an elderly neighbour asking for help after struggling to forward a message sent by one contact on whatsapp to another contact on facebook. Having to explain: > Well there's usually an icon that looks like this, and sometimes it will bring up the android share menu, but sometimes it opens up something that only shows you contact in that app, and having someone on facebook is not the same as on whatsapp. > And oh look, apparently whatsapp and/or facebook has a bug where you select to share the video and you end up at the whatsapp contact screen but selecting a contact loses the video. > Well I guess you can go into your gallery and share from there. That seems to work. But not every app is going to expose its images in your gallery. And it became clear that even the simple devices aren't.
- pmarreck 6y ago
  > Well there's usually an icon that looks like this, and sometimes it will bring up the android share menu, but sometimes it opens up something that only shows you contact in that app, and having someone on facebook is not the same as on whatsapp. Back in my day, Apple had something called the Human Interface Guidelines and they adhered to them religiously, and IMHO it made computing a lot more approachable for a neophyte, compared to the mess we have today with "hamburger menus" vs. "triple-dot menus" (REALLY??), no general way to access the settings of any app, no general way to do anything really save for typing in text (and sometimes not even then!) Instagram and Snapchat (the worst offender here, you literally won't learn some inputs unless someone tells you about them!) have not made anything better.

sadbutttru 6y ago

The digital world is its own prison with various wardens and cell blocks and so many rules that you will be kept in prison for breaking them without knowing.

gorpomon 6y ago

As a society we're just not being real about our digital divides. Your digital ability goes up and down in life, and the web HAS to be accessible to you at those lower points of ability: While caring for (or just carrying) a child. After an injury or stroke that limits your mobility. Living with chronic conditions. Changing technology or losing access to your go-to tools. Traveling to areas with a digital divide in some way. And many more... We've made the case for the for some sets differently abled people-- I'm hard pressed to find a developer who doesn't consider keyboard navigability for those who can't use a mouse-- but you need to rethink interactions at a base level and we're just getting started with that. There's a lot of work to do here.

kyooyk 6y ago

I really think the point is not how long it might take someone to learn how to use tools, but the impacts of prison. I work with these folks through my company to help them become employed upon release. A few things, it is astounding but believable that when people are released they enter a world that is entirely unknown to them. Not only technology but their relationships and neighborhoods are completely different. In addition,They have no reliable way of getting back on their feet. They usually have zero money, no housing and no job - and there is why you have high recidivism rates. Not only that, but no one wants to hire justice involved individuals, even though significant tax credits are available for doing so - Walmart for example, takes extreme advantage of these. The training programs in prisons will train someone up to a certification, but fall short of letting them get that certification. People have completed their GED maybe 5 times inside serving sentences at different times because doing so can reduce their sentence, it doesn’t help them in any other way. Without the ability to access training for in demand skills, many of these individuals get temp service jobs as flagged for construction for example. Doesn’t make sense to me that we want to rehab people yet minimal opportunities inside are provided to break the cycle. Realize this. People serve a sent and then they are eligible for parole. Many people opt to serve their parole inside, rather than outside. I’ve been told they feel it is easier inside than out.

jimmaswell 6y ago
Shawshank Redemption did a great job showing a lot of this.
anonymousiam 6y ago
I've never served time, but from what I understand, the burdens associated with being on parole (check ins, drug tests, danger of associating with the wrong people, etc.) are so onerous that many prefer to serve the full sentence so that when they get out, they are not on parole. I would probably make the same choice.
- mike00632 6y ago
  I learned only recently that people on parole have to pay for parole. All of the mandatory meetings and drugs tests are paid by the parolee. What happens if they can't pay?-- back to prison. It's brutal.

zwischenzug 6y ago

I wrote a similar thread a while back while helping my 70-year old neighbour: https://twitter.com/ianmiell/status/1299742361854054401 https://twitter.com/ianmiell/status/1299742361854054401 """One example of the insanity: "Enter mobile number to register" OK, 0793... "You already have an account with that number" "Enter mobile number to get recovery details" OK, 0793... "You do not have an account with that number" Turns out you have to put 44793..."""

deleted 6y ago
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Balgair 6y ago

Aside: While we're on the subject of incarcerated education, please consider donating time or resources to your local incarcerated people. The American Library Association has a good list of book donation programs here: https://libguides.ala.org/book-donations/bookstoprisons https://libguides.ala.org/book-donations/bookstoprisons After the pandemic subsides (whenever that may be), the Bureau of Prisons has a guide on how to help out the recently/incarcerated here: https://www.bop.gov/jobs/volunteer.jsp https://www.bop.gov/jobs/volunteer.jsp Here's a good piece on how a volunteer can help save lives (maybe this can be you!): https://prisonwriters.com/prison-volunteers/ https://prisonwriters.com/prison-volunteers/

Ccecil 6y ago

After briefly reading the comments I decided to chime in a little bit. First, 30 years on the inside...crazy. I don't think it is possible to put that in perspective. Cellphones were uncommon, the internet was still using "prodigy" and the likes, pagers were the "in thing". Forget trying to use the internet...these people have issues with the "number of decisions" in the grocery store (it is one of those areas where people quite literally freeze up, if you don't know feel free to look up the commissary options this person has had for 30 years). Nothing looks the same, not neighborhoods, cars, clothing, people... You have been staring at guards for the last 30 years and an PA announcement has told you when/where to move and when to eat. Every day has been on repeat... Now...30 years has passed and they let you out. What do you do...nothing but choices and a nearly constant flood of situations and experiences which you don't fully understand. Every task is something new to learn. And if you ask for help you are likely going to need to explain why you don't understand this stuff which may cause those people who were willing to help to second guess themselves and/or judge you. You have nothing...assume your family/friends have mostly moved on (this happens even when you are not in prison often) and your only hope to have enough to get back on your feet is to fill out the mountains of forms required to get a portion of what you really need to live. Now imagine your only way to get those forms is to use the internet...it is very fortunate this person had a case worker who was willing to spend the time to help...many don't. There is a non-zero amount of recidivism which is intentional. People get out and then decide the world moved on without them. They were better off not having choices or options they did not understand. Often, the hoops of parole are too much and they prefer to "top out" their time so they are not required to do things like keep a job which has paystubs (often you get paid way more under the table, as well as having bosses who don't undervalue your pay due to your criminal past), or find proper housing (halfway houses are required often for parole if you do not have someone who will vouch for you in a written letter). Not to mention that staying sober is hard at times, decide to get drunk on the wrong night or share a joint with someone and you are likely to face repercussions from your Parole officer. It is a difficult situation. I have nothing but the utmost respect for the case manager. She very likely kept this person from either reoffending or worse killing themselves. The programs on the inside are often not the best (depends on the state, program, and facility...some are private). If you think there is any way you can or would like to help in this situation maybe get in touch with some of the halfway houses or probation offices in your area. Your tech skills and abilities to navigate paperwork are much more valuable than you might understand. From there...you could look into possibly helping inside the prisons too (there may be other restrictions). Maybe even just look into mailing some books to the library there (last I checked they had to be shipped in by the vendor/bookstore). That book on Python may very well be the thing that changes their life...and possibly society.

srswtf123 6y ago

The US government has gotten around its prohibition on “cruel and unusual punishment” in two ways. First, it outsourced the cruelty to private businesses, who are not prohibited in the same way. Second, in instances where it cannot be outsourced, they simply make their cruelty usual and commonplace, neatly skirting the requirement it be unusual. The prison system is an example of both.

jimmaswell 6y ago

If this person can learn all this so fast then our parents who ask how to put a file in an email or change their TV's input source for the 50th time, not making any attempt to retain the information because they know we'll be their crutch, have zero excuse. It's disgusting. Good on this guy.

dagorenouf 6y ago

Why did she get him a computer tough, it's the most complex machine there is to access the web. Just an iPhone or iPad would have been better. Children and old people usually fare better with these than with normal "computers".

pradn 6y ago

I remember my grandfather asking me why the newspaper website went down when he pressed the up button and up when he pressed the down button. I had no answer. And it was the only thing keeping him not bored as he spent a year in American suburbs, away from the warmth of whole community he's lived with all his life. It's hard for us realize all the random things we've learned over the years to live in the digital era.

cestith 6y ago
I'm guessing this was on a Mac. Apple calls it "Natural scroll direction". If so, go to the Apple menu -> System Preferences -> Mouse and uncheck the box labeled "scroll direction: Natural".
- kubanczyk 6y ago
  Parent did not write anything about a mouse. Up/down arrow keys work like this on every notable browser, every notable platform. Up arrow makes the content go down.

deleted 6y ago

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grumple 6y ago

~17 years ago when I was in high school, my senior project was teaching old folks how to use computers. It was much harder than I expected. Clicking a mouse was something they just didn't understand - they used their whole hand! Had to get them to use just a finger. Many other concepts were difficult to convey as well. I think things have changed a lot since then (we have drastically better widespread tech literacy now), but it was an enlightening experience.

macintux 6y ago
I taught a computer lab at a local university a few years before that and discovered through one unhappy encounter with an angry student a key attribute that I’d failed to apprehend previously. This student wanted to know exactly what to do when he encountered an error. I showed him my thought process for how I’d work my way back to a good known state and he was enraged. Computer literacy is in no small part a willingness to experiment and be unafraid of what can happen (or at least enough basic knowledge to know how to avoid the really sharp edges that can in fact cause harm). It’s a very difficult thing to teach.

Zelphyr 6y ago

My uncle spent some time in prison in the late 80's and early 90's and was able to learn FoxPro while there. In addition to it being hard to find work having a criminal record, by the time he got out, everybody was transitioning away from FoxPro. As is too often the case, the lure of money from selling drugs combined with not being able to find work meant he returned to prison. He got out again in the early-mid 2000's and this time around, there were no courses offered for study. When he got out that time, he didn't even know how to use the TV remote. One day, history will look back on how we treat our prisoners with immense shame. Instead of trying to rehabilitate them, we leave them to rot, and politicians never shy away from an opportunity to make the lives of prisoners more miserable, lest they risk being called "soft" on crime.

nix23 6y ago

What is that for a shit country that cant prepare the prisoners for a live in the open without having to fall back into old patterns?

ChrisArchitect 6y ago

all this rambling about bank systems and ATMs and stuff aside, this is a sad story about a guy locked up that did his time and never got any computer skills all these years and it's sad.