21 ms·

How I got here

925 points by low_tech_love 3y ago

3l3ktr4 3y ago
I’m really happy that you found a way out of the trafficking life. That was a really nice thing to read and I think a lot of people will resonate with it. (Computer nerds that had tough times in life). I’m wishing you all the best in your fight against addiction and I’m definitely adding Unlocked Labs to my list of donations. Thanks for sharing your story.
sgu999 3y ago
I'm always amazed at this country in which incarcerating someone for 10 years (!!) for non violent drug dealing is economical, but public healthcare and education aren't.
- DragonL80 3y ago
  This comment is everything. Not to mention that due to understaffed and over budget facilities, rehabilitation programs are generally the first things to get cut.
- mckn1ght 3y ago
  It starts to make more sense when you look at the 13th amendment: > Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction. Private prisons are in the business of cheap labor, not rehabilitation. It would be extremely expensive to effectively change the lifestyles of millions of people and treat their addiction, not to mention those around them who become traumatized due to their mistakes and follow in their footprints. We simply lack the necessary amount of political will to do an end run around this by decriminalizing harmful drugs and providing safer pathways of use that can lead to treatment for addiction. Partially because, again, cheap labor! But no doubt also due to moral puritanism. I’m happy to see there is some movement in state constitutions to do away with this kind of punishment, and even house/senate resolutions proposed to amend the federal constitution, although I don’t know what’s become of that effort.
  - sgu999 3y ago
    > Private prisons are in the business of cheap labor, not rehabilitation. How so? From that post and a few others I've read touching on the topic, it didn't seem obvious that prisoners are being put to work.
    - mckn1ght 3y ago
      A quick internet search brings up various things, here’s just one: https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2023/01/01/louisiana-prison-labor-ballot-slavery/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2023/01/01/louisiana-p...
  - deleted 3y ago
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wscourge 3y ago
This lays in a similar domain with a french startup named Vainu that back in 2019 started to use incarcerated people for data labelling. Look it up.
nayuki 3y ago
Parts of Preston Thorpe's story of redemption have similarities to Andreas Kling: https://awesomekling.github.io/I-quit-my-job-to-focus-on-SerenityOS-full-time/ https://awesomekling.github.io/I-quit-my-job-to-focus-on-Ser... > It was October 2018 and I had just completed a 3-month rehab program at a state addiction clinic in Sweden. I was unemployed, staying with family, and had basically nothing going on. > With no drugs or other vices to pass the time, the days seemed impossibly long. I struggled to find activities to fill them. I enrolled in school for a while, but it wasn’t for me this time either. Eventually I turned to programming, since it’s always been my big interest in life.
marcofloriano 3y ago
Preston Thorpe, about your epiphany moment, any possible relationship with Jesus ?
macintux 3y ago
I hate to quote so much of the post—it's well worth a read—but I think it's bookended by two very different experiences that convey so much about the U.S. prison system. > A few years later, I left prison with $0 in my pocket (lawyers and commissary are expensive, and nobody pays you what they owe you when you come in), to a rooming house with hallways that smelled like crack-smoke and were filled with parole officers and junkies. I was left with the difficult choice of either living there and walking to a temp agency with hopes of making $10.50/hour doing manual labor (without an ID or social security card at this point), or getting on a bus to NYC to see some associates, and coming back in a week or so with $15-25k in my pocket and living in comfy luxury hotels until I could rent an apartment… I chose the latter, obviously, and was back in prison after 14mo. ...and later: > I am very grateful for the opportunity, but I recognize that this is very much the exception and not the rule, and the success of the Maine model of corrections should highlight the absolutely embarrassing lack of opportunities in the rest of the system, to do anything but become a bitter, broke criminal; deprived of not just your freedom, family, financial security and reputation, but also of your self-identity as someone worth investing in changing. We need to do better as a society, and understand that, yes, there are people in the system that deserve this kind of punishment, but a large majority of our prison population are just regular people… non-violent drug offenders like myself. There are plenty more, like me, that are capable of being responsible, productive, tax paying members of society if given the opportunity, but you cannot expect anyone to change when you just lock them up in a cage with a bunch of other criminals where there is a subculture of endless negativity.
- k1ns 3y ago
  Prisons in the USA are for-profit enterprises that rely on a consistent population. They have no incentive to rehabilitate, in fact it's the opposite. What I don't understand is how a country with so many advantages like the USA could come up with arguably the worst prison system in the world. As a citizen, it's embarrassing that this is accepted by those in power as a good solution.
  - pcl 3y ago
    As it turns out, Maine (where the author of the article ended up) has gotten rid of all their for-profit prisons, as of 2020. https://www.criminon.org/where-we-work/united-states/maine/ https://www.criminon.org/where-we-work/united-states/maine/
gavinhoward 3y ago
This is an incredible post, and I encourage everyone to read it. I wish I knew better how to help incarcerated people. Based on the Norway(?) model, I feel like help would reduce return rates, but I don't know how to go about it.
- dleslie 3y ago
  There are reasonable suggestions for organizations to support, at the bottom of the post.
  - gavinhoward 3y ago
    Yes, though supporting an organization always feels like expecting someone else to do the hard work. I'd like to do more.
    - kelnos 3y ago
      Have you considered writing to some of these organizations and asking them if you can volunteer your time?
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
    - frob 3y ago
      Recidiviz is hiring: https://angel.co/company/recidiviz/jobs https://angel.co/company/recidiviz/jobs
      - macintux 3y ago
        Apropos of nothing, that jobs site is technically-challenged. Recidiviz has 2 jobs posted, but looking at the filters, there are apparently 3 available in NYC or SF (and no "remote" filter, despite the fact that both jobs are listed as remote, NYC, or SF).
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causality0 3y ago
I don't at all care for the way in which he mentions his crimes were nonviolent and tells us about being arrested for dealing ecstasy (a drug with little taboo associated with it) while skipping over the fact he's currently in prison for dealing choke-on-your-own-vomit synthetic opiods, not cute party drugs. That stuff killed a coworker's son a few years ago. Died right in his own recliner.
- edgyquant 3y ago
  Yeah this guy belongs in jail and clearly doesn’t think what he did was a problem at all. In the midst of an epidemic that kills tens of thousands of Americans a year the dealers of these drugs make the front page and are cheered on as “victims.” The victims here are the families and children of the people whose abuse he profited greatly off of.
  - RandomLensman 3y ago
    The guy is in jail and is serving his sentence. I could understand given recent scandals with opioids that people view perhaps justice in this area as "patchy", though.
    - throwaway626 3y ago
      It’s some strange bias that lets people get worked up about this one already-convicted dealer but pass over in silence the pharmaceutical companies that designed these opioids to be so addictive and marketed them so aggressively so that doctors would over-prescribe them.
      - trogdor 3y ago
        I don’t know anyone who is ignoring their culpability. There has been an enormous amount of litigation against pharmaceutical companies in relation to opioids, resulting in tens of billions of dollars in settlements.
        3y ago
admissionsguy 3y ago
> particularly those affected by the war on drugs, like myself, who has spent 1/3 of his life imprisoned for non-violent drug crimes Still not quite ready to take responsibility for his actions... You weren't magically "affected" by the war on drugs. You went into crime for the easy money, but found out you weren't very good at avoiding getting caught.
- deleted 3y ago
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- deleted 3y ago
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- fabianhjr 3y ago
  Meanwhile working class people have lesser and lesser purchasing power to the point were renting and homeownership are out of their reach; subemployment / "gig" employment ("innovating" by removing without workers rights) is rampant. Nothing like a system that produces a high amount of marginalized / vulnerable people and then blames them for going for "easy" money like drugs or prostitution. I would expect the tech crowd here to be more inclined towards blameless postmortems / systemic safety.
- mordae 3y ago
  It's not like they've scammed others with crypto or tried to overtake markets with price dumping tactics or bribed the governments to use their software or spied on billions for profit. They've just lorried stuff other poor people wanted. That should not be illegal. The above should.
gavinray 3y ago
You might consider emailing him. It's lonely in jail/prison. Suddenly everyone you thought were your closest friends don't speak a word to you again. If you're lucky, you've got a wife or parents that'll write to you or take your calls.
- qingcharles 3y ago
  Wow, I know you've been locked up, brother. Nobody will take your call the second you step inside a jail. Best man at your wedding? He's not picking up, I promise you. Literally nobody will call you or write to you. You will get nothing except maybe from your mother. If you are married, forget it. Humans only like to associate with success. Once you seem to be failing literally nobody will want to even speak to you.
  - gavinray 3y ago
    https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/fair-weather_friend#Noun https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/fair-weather_friend#Noun
    - ge96 3y ago
      Exploring the wasteland this song plays
- low_tech_love 3y ago
  I wanted to contact him to tell him that he was wrong (he got to the front page without using any of his proposed techniques [1]) but I couldn’t find the e-mail. I have no LinkedIn either; right now I almost feel like submitting an issue to one of his github repos just to get his attention. Can you point me to his e-mail address? [1] https://pthorpe92.github.io/humor/How-to-get-on-hackernews-front-page/ https://pthorpe92.github.io/humor/How-to-get-on-hackernews-f...
  - gavinray 3y ago
    I got it from his GitHub page: https://github.com/PThorpe92 https://github.com/PThorpe92 His email is preston@unlockedlabs.org
RecycledEle 3y ago
The apparent lack of opportunities for anyone is easy to solve with Dorm Room Welfare: Open free dorms next to the campuses of community colleges. Anyone who is physically able to live on their own, but who can not afford to live on their own can move in and live there as long as they are working towards being economically self sufficient. Working towards being economically self sufficient can mean passing academic classes, passing career and technical education classes, taking remedial classes, completing a high school equivalency degree, passing K-12 classes online, earning certifications, working in internships, working jobs at a training wage, or other things I suggest we replace all other welfare programs with drom room welfare. This does not solve the problem that many of us do not want to hire convicted criminals.
- gavinray 3y ago
  > This does not solve the problem that many of us do not want to hire convicted criminals. Thank you for at least acknowledging this. I'd wager that if people with convictions on their record, had even a 10-20% chance of being hired at a decent establishment, we'd see recidivism go down by a statistically significant amount. I know the justice system. The grand majority of folks coming in and out of prison genuinely do not want better for themselves, it's a lifestyle choice that they've accepted (or resigned themselves to, depending on how you look at it). But for the fractional percentage of incarcerated individuals that DO decide "Okay, I've had enough, I'm done with this and I want better for myself" and mean it, they aren't afforded such a luxurious opportunity for a bland life in suburbia.
  - RecycledEle 3y ago
    [flagged]
    - freedomben 3y ago
      That's genuinely horrifying, and I don't find many opinions horrifying. Are you being serious or trolling? If serious, I hope people don't kill your comment because this is one I think should be discussed.
mmaunder 3y ago
The is incredibly inspirational. It’s a light we can potentially use to guide our prison system out of the dark ages.
arbuge 3y ago
>> the success of the Maine model of corrections should highlight the absolutely embarrassing lack of opportunities in the rest of the system Very well said. And I am glad we have a model now, if one was ever needed. I hope other prison systems take note.
- frob 3y ago
  As someone actively working in this space, I can tell you they are. Maine is following the so-called Scandinavian Model. It essentially comes down to giving incarcerated people a chance to practice normal daily activities and social interactions. The facilities feel more like highly secure dorms than jails. The way a head of a different DoC said still sticks with me: We send people away for years, tell them exactly what to do every day and they get to make exacrly one choice every day: do you obey or not? That's the only choice you get to make. Then, after 3, 5, 10 years, we send them out into society and tell them, "Make better choices." But we haven't prepared them for that at all. We have given them almost no chances to make decisions and learn how to make good ones. We just tell them the decision to make and they do it. There's no space for practicing good decisions in traditional prison settings. Multiple other states are pointing to Maine as proof that the Scandinavian model can work in the US and are incorporating their learnings into their plans and trainings.
  - bboles 3y ago
    We send people away for years, tell them exactly what to do every day and they get to make exacrly one choice every day: do you obey or not? That's the only choice you get to make. Then, after 3, 5, 10 years, we send them out into society and tell them, "Make better choices." But we haven't prepared them for that at all. We have given them almost no chances to make decisions and learn how to make good ones. We just tell them the decision to make and they do it. There's no space for practicing good decisions in traditional prison settings. This really puts things in perspective. Thank you for sharing!
  - vt85 3y ago
    [dead]
- 3y ago
wavemode 3y ago
I guess I read this blog post very differently from many other commenters. I don't see this as being entitled or avoiding responsibility for his actions. He's just telling his story. He knows he fucked up. But he also knows the system is fucked. If you can't possibly understand how growing up without positive influences can lead someone to a life of crime, you're probably too privileged to be the target audience of this article. Just move on.
- lynx23 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - ocdtrekkie 3y ago
    Dude was already in crime at 17. He didn't really have any time with the luxuries of adulthood to figure out his own life.
    - lynx23 3y ago
      I was deep into rave culture at that age. Lets just say I know the "deal". However, I always knew I would never sell, because, surprise, I knew the penalty was not worth it. So, I actually know what I am talking about here, and still lack sympathy. Risk taken, game lost. Simple.
      - ocdtrekkie 3y ago
        It's great your ability to judge risk and reward at age 17 was so solid, but for many it is not. Brain development does not stop that early. I think the difference in culpability between a bad decision at age 17 and say, a bad decision at age 23 is huge.
        closewith 3y ago
        More importantly, the fact the GP believes the risk was not worth it shows that their situation was far better than that of many people. Crime is a risk worth taking in many cases.
JessicaHicklin 3y ago
Whatever people are incarcerated for, the fact of the matter is that 95% of the people currently incarcerated in the US will one day live next door to one or more of us. Isn't it better to prepare them to live there, self-sufficent and contributing to society? (Disclosure: I am the Cofounder of Unlocked Labs, Preston's current employer and formerly incarcerated myself). I can say without hesitation, Preston is an incredible employee whom I am happy we provided this opportunity for.
- gavinray 3y ago
  Great to see you here Jessica =) I didn't realize Unlocked was your organization.
  - JessicaHicklin 3y ago
    Nice to see you in the conversation as well and yes, I am a cofounder
- ulizzle 3y ago
  There are a lot of historical examples arguing for and against you. But murder and rape is far different than getting popped for heroin or selling weed and our laws already reflect that
  - zamalek 3y ago
    Rehabilitation is rehabilitation. In contrast, the American system aims for penance, which is why we call it penetentiary. You have to "pay for your actions" - which has absolutely nothing to do with rehabilitation and preventing recidivism. Paying for your actions is deeply ingrained is the American zeitgeist - making the concept of favoring rehabilitation appear immoral. Regardless, it could be argued that rehabilitating a perpetrator of more severe crimes is a harsher form of punitive justice. Living with your (newly acquired) guilt and regret about your actions is more difficult than hanging out with, and learning from, your peers in crime university - prison. Also, selling heroin is often manslaughter.
  - 3y ago
JessicaHicklin 3y ago
Whether you feel sympathy for Preston or not, the fact of the matter is that 95% of the incarcerated individuals in the US will one day love next to you and me. Wouldn't you rather they be prepared to live there, to have a job and resources? To be self-sufficient (Preston will not need welfare resources when he returns because of this opportunity)? (Disclosure, I am Preston's employer and formerly incarcerated myself)
- imafounderlolhi 3y ago
  you're a mentally ill tr4nny who murdered someone during a meth deal. amazing how the few "sweetheart articles" online fail to mention this.
  - deleted 3y ago
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  - piperswe 3y ago
    how is her gender relevant at all?
FpUser 3y ago
It is incredible story. I wish you all all the good luck you can get and happy life after you get out of prison. I also wish that prison systems in the US and Canada will adopt this "Scandinavian" model. So much better to put people back on right track instead of being vengeful fucks who would chase person the end of their days,
EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 3y ago
Wait, do they have computer and internet access in prison?? And free meals, healthcare and lodging? I might have taken that deal when I was young, busting my ass at shit jobs and renting shit places with crazy roommates.
- imtringued 3y ago
  I don't know what to tell you, but the quality of the roommates doesn't get better in prison.
TacticalCoder 3y ago
TFA is interesting but I've got a problem with this: > I was left with the difficult choice of either living there and walking to a temp agency with hopes of making $10.50/hour doing manual labor (without an ID or social security card at this point), or getting on a bus to NYC to see some associates, and coming back in a week or so with $15-25k in my pocket and living in comfy luxury hotels until I could rent an apartment I chose the latter, obviously, and was back in prison after 14mo. That is not obvious. My father was left with nothing at some point in his life, living like a hobo in an abandoned, broken, leaking RV next to gypsies (heck, he'd even, for free, help the gypsies' kids with "homework"). And he was still proud --and still is-- of never having done anything illegal. People choose to engage in crime, and there's nothing obvious about it. Nobody needs the latest iPhone or the latest sneakers. They believe they "flex" with the latest iPhone and sneakers (I've got a whole different idea of flexing btw but that'd be another topic). They choose the easy path. And that is not obvious at all. Most poor people and by very, very, very far, even most hobos, are not thieves and are not drug dealers. When you deal drugs you have on your conscience how miserable you make the lives of so many others: it's not even about legality here. I had a friend and roommate at one point (and still friend to this day), we'd split rent and he'd barely make any money. Serving pitas at a tiny kebab/pita place three nights a week for hardly any money. And he was okay with that. He didn't care about clothes or cars or phones or fancy hotel rooms or whatever. He'd just be honest and survive. What I'd like to know is why people believe it's "obvious" they choose a criminal life for $25 K a week instead of an honest life flipping burgers. It's not obvious and that mindset of "fancy luxury hotel rooms" and "latest iPhone" should just die. Nobody is impressing anyone with these utterly pointless bullshit.
- _dark_matter_ 3y ago
  Asking newly-release prisoners to have the absolute strongest constitution and pain endurance is also not obvious to me. The average person would struggle in this situation, and we expect formerly-incarcerate individuals to be even stronger than them? It doesn't offend me at all to see it highlighted as "obvious" to the author. For some high proportion of these individuals, it is obvious (and indeed seems like the only choice).
hermitcrab 3y ago
I recently read a book about experiences in the UK prison system: 'A Bit of a Stretch: The Diaries of a Prisoner' by Chris Atkins (there is an associated podcast, which is also excellent). It is a fascinating, but rather depressing read about his experiences being incarcerated for tax fraud and how broken the UK prison system is. It is no wonder the re-offending rates are so high. I'm guessing much of the US system (where I understand a lot more for-profit private companies are involved) is at least as broken.
- qingcharles 3y ago
  As a Brit prisoner in the USA I understand the that USA systems are far, far worse than the UK systems.
  - supertofu 3y ago
    Are you in contact with your family at all?
    - qingcharles 3y ago
      I apologise if that comment made it seem like I was currently incarcerated. I've been out for a few months now. Yes, in contact with my brother. No other family interested in contact any longer. Mother died while I was locked up :(
      - supertofu 3y ago
        I'm sorry to hear about your mom. I'm glad there is at least one family member there for you.
zoogeny 3y ago
> Who else has an opportunity to spend 12+ hours a day learning something for years? With no other obligations or responsibilities? Totally tangential, but this prison article reminded me of a short story by Cory Doctorow about a monastery for programmers. I imagined living in a room about the size of my home office, a bed, a desk, a decent MacBook Pro and a high-speed connection and just hanging out on the Internet all day reading articles and programming. Food and shelter taken care of, no obligations or responsibilities. Like the pictures of Norwegian prison cells. That reminded me of a weird Internet streamer collective started by a Twitch streamer named Athene. He started a group called The Singularity Group [1] which allowed people to move into a house to volunteer work on philanthropic projects. They are responsible for the AI Jesus [2] channel on Twitch. There is some controversy since some see the streamer as having tried to start a cult [3]. They also created a few mobile games that run on their own crypto-currency. At any rate, it is all quite interesting to me. It was very common in the past in almost all cultures for a certain number of men to just reject society and go off into hermitage. Sometimes those hermits would band together into brotherhoods. Often they would make beer, or honey or some other collective task to earn enough money for the members to spend the rest of their time in quiet contemplation. I can imagine such a life might be attractive to a lot of programmers who tend to be introverted and feel alien to normal society. 1. https://singularitygroup.net/ https://singularitygroup.net/ 2. https://www.twitch.tv/ask_jesus https://www.twitch.tv/ask_jesus 3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDAkkiwmmBQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDAkkiwmmBQ
- wavemode 3y ago
  Athene was indeed trying to start a cult (it had all the basic elements). And from watching him speak in the past, he did seem to me like a huge narcissist. Haven't been following his latest projects much, and I can't speak to how the Singularity group has changed since back then. Though I have seen his AI channel sometimes. It's moderately entertaining.
  - zoogeny 3y ago
    I cant't comment directly on whether or not he was or wasn't actually trying to start a cult, but I am interested in cults in general (and any kind of esoteric/occult stuff) so I devoured a lot of content related to this. I mean, a 21st century digital cult!? That is some juicy stuff! What I found was a young idealistic kid who was playing a character online. He was optimizing for views and we all know what kind of behavior gets attention online. The character was overblown and narcissistic. There is zero argument from me that if you take selected clips of him from when he was at the height of his streaming fame he was a dumb-ass edge-lord playing the role of a prophet or spiritual leader. He even leaned into it when he was accused because he thought it was funny. But when you watch recent videos of him (he does a pretty good react to Asmongold's react of him), I think I saw a different side. All that being said, he isn't a kind of character I trust. He seems to me to be very much the kind of person where the ends justify the means. He has some pretty high ideals, some of which I agree with and others which I am sympathetic towards. It's like Greenpeace or animal rights activists ... even if I agree with their overall goals I often disagree with their methods.
th4tg41 3y ago
What blew my mind is that ~667/100000 or ~.67% of Americans are incarcerated according to the numbers in this post and the population according to the German Wiki page for the US. Wikipedia says it's .531% on the English language website, .629% on the German site. (Don't know which year for either or if juvenile detention is counted on German site.) That is A LOT! A LOT!
- overrun11 3y ago
  It's largely a function of the much higher rate of violent crime in the United States
- rootusrootus 3y ago
  The last time this topic came up on HN (not that long ago, a matter of weeks), I dove into the rabbit hole a bit. Turns out that the lion's share of the difference in incarceration rates between the US and other countries comes down to sentencing. Crime-for-crime, the US doles out a lot more time than e.g. Western European nations. A lot of people think it's drug crimes. Not really. Just the same old crimes as everywhere else, punished with 2-3x the amount of time. This is basically what US voters have asked for up until recently. Being tough on crime is a feature for a politician. Three-strikes laws, etc.
andai 3y ago
Well, it looks like he finally did it! https://pthorpe92.github.io/humor/How-to-get-on-hackernews-front-page/ https://pthorpe92.github.io/humor/How-to-get-on-hackernews-f...
- andai 3y ago
  Edit: He says he posted this literally yesterday. LOL
ghuntley 3y ago
Today he reached a personal goal - https://pthorpe92.github.io/humor/How-to-get-on-hackernews-front-page/ https://pthorpe92.github.io/humor/How-to-get-on-hackernews-f...
- andai 3y ago
  The site doesn't show the date, but I emailed him and he says he posted it yesterday. Ain't that just the way!
Nimitz14 3y ago
Awesome and amazing.
codingrightnow 3y ago
As a former software engineer for over a decade and current corrections officer in a max level state facility, this is a very interesting topic. My facility has a large college presence within it. While there are problems with it, I think overall it is probably a net positive for the staff and inmates. At the same time, I don't believe that we have more than maybe a small handful of nonviolent/drug offenders; anybody on the outside advocating for murderers, rapists, and those in for armed robbery to have access to more of the normal comforts of the outside world is going to have a hard time and not much support. Even the medium level prisons have those types of people in them. So what facilities would wider access to remote learning and work become available? There would need to be honor facilities inmates must work towards proving they're responsible enough to be transferred to. Right now budgets are being slashed, we're at 60% staffing as it is, and the whole state is in the shit. And this is a "progressive liberal" state. It would probably take the federal government to start throwing money around for pilot programs, no state is going to increase their prison budget to accommodate this.
- strix_varius 3y ago
  Thanks for more first hand insight, from a related but different perspective. I'm curious: what led you to leave software engineering? SWE to corrections officer sounds like a rare journey.
  - codingrightnow 3y ago
    My life circumstances were such that I needed a job in a new area where that's all I was qualified to do (meaning I can breathe) while earning enough to live on. Software engineering is not an option within 90 minutes of here. Even if I could get a job in software here and it paid the same, software is significantly more stressful than my current job, the future is unsure as tech is always changing, the people I work with are closer and more friendly/outgoing, and the time off is amazing. When I leave work I'm done, there's no reading up on/practicing the latest stack without any guarantees it's going to increase my employability. When I walk out of the prison, my own personal life is all need to think about. I'd probably not take the job for less than a 50% increase in what I make now. And wages here are so low it just wouldn't happen. I do still enjoy coding but I like it as a hobby. And honestly, I was probably never very good at it.
j7ake 3y ago
If I get locked up maybe I would finally get to doing the exercises from the art of computer programming.
- alfnor 3y ago
  It isn't the worst deal because you don't have to worry about paying rent, so you can just focus 100% on getting good at whatever skillset you choose to pursue.
jasonlotito 3y ago
> kicked out of my parents house for being a stupid 17yr old That's child abuse in my book. If you are a parent, you are responsible for your children. That's it. No age limit. Nothing. They need a place? You are responsible for providing them a place to live. This isn't to say you have to be responsible for their crimes, but you should never be allowed to force your child out of your house. YOU brought them into this world. They are your responsibility. Forcing a child out? You are a terrible parent. Yes, some children thrive, but others don't. I'm sorry, but it's on you. If you aren't ready to take care of your children or make sure they are taken care of for the remainder of their life, you shouldn't have children. 18 and you force them out? You are in the wrong.
- rootusrootus 3y ago
  That's pretty harsh. Children turn into adults, and not all of them turn out great. As a parent my responsibility is to get them to adulthood with as much chance of success as it is possible for me to provide. At some point they do absolutely become responsible for their own decisions. Do I ever want to find out what it would take to throw my own child out of the house? Of course not. Am I going to toss them out when they turn 18? No plans to. But this idea that you should be responsible for another adult for the rest of their life just because you created them...? That's silly.
  - sevagh 3y ago
    In this case the one singular event of being kicked out at a specifically vulnerable age of 17-18. The rest of their life was influenced by that.
  - jasonlotito 3y ago
    > That's pretty harsh. Children turn into adults, No, it's not. It's reality. And you only think it's harsh because you are ignorant. And that ignorance will not prepare you for reality. > But this idea that you should be responsible for another adult for the rest of their life just because you created them...? That's silly. No, it's reality. And if you think otherwise, you are not ready to be a parent. Or you'll have a rude awakening when it turns out you are wrong. Maybe you get lucky and they are able to support themselves, but if you think you raising them to 18 means you are done, it just means you are ignorant. > Children turn into adults, No, they don't and that's your ignorance. Not all children grow up to be adults mentally. Not all children grow up. There are numerous conditions that mean you are responsible for them for the rest of their life, ensuring they get the care they need. And trying to wave that off as the exception, it just means that you are ignorant. You should go into being a parent understanding that this might happen. I see way too many parents throwing their kids into the water and letting them sink or swim. Sorry, but if they drown, it's on you as the parent. You failed them. You are the failure. And that's child abuse, and people that think like that are worthless. Do better.
Fischgericht 3y ago
I'd like to make a couple of points to think about: I'd been addicted to opioids for a couple of years. And I was very happy that I was able to get original non-counterfeit pills on the dark net, from vendors that had thousands of positives reviews. Being a nerd, and successful when it comes to business, risk-free supply had never been an issue. Luckily I bought Bitcoin when they did cost $0.20... Fighting the dark net has always been a stupid idea. It's the cleanest way for people to get the substances they need, with the lowest amount of risk in every single regard. Lowest risk to get your substance cut with something unhealthy, lowest risk of getting ripped off, lowest risk of getting into criminal circles. Fighting the dark net means pushing people to street dealers, increasing suffering, violent crime and deaths. So, why did I get addicted? Depressions, anxiousness, and finally: Being on the autistic spectrum, which now seems absolutely obvious from earliest childhood memories, but my parents never took me to a neurologist to get that diagnosed. I just lived with being "different". Until I could not take it anymore, and tried to help myself with substances. How did I get off the addiction? Did a search for the best-rated neurologist in the region, made an appointment, got treatment. It took a while, but in the end a combination of substances was found that worked out better than opiates. But that being said: Those substances are the same that I can get as prescription medication, or as "drugs" on the street. It's just that now I no longer have to spend Bitcoin on it, but get them for free from the health care system. Yay! Please remind yourself: Nearly everything that is taken and sold as "drugs" on the streets is used to treat some problem, just in a very dangerous way, without proper education, without proper risk management. Whatever that scary drug that your parents and your school are warning you about to be evil: It's just medication. The poor people die on the street trying to get their supply, the rich guys get a subscription to get it for free. If your country has a problem with drugs on the street, and with crime due to people trying to get those substances, your country SIMPLY HAS A PROBLEM PROVIDING HEALTH CARE to its citizens! So please stop demonizing substances, demonizing substance "abuse", demonizing people providing those substances in a clean and safe way via the dark net, and demonizing people who sadly did not have the luck of their health care system helping them. And go fix your health care systems.
- supertofu 3y ago
  I resonate with this comment strongly. I have never been diagnosed, but I strongly suspect I am neurodivergent. My extreme social isolation/anxiety in my college years and twenties led me to dependency on alcohol and cannabis. I never tried hard drugs, but my life back then was just one tiny twist of fate away from me becoming an opioid addict. I did manage to become sober, and a lot of social challenges have become more manageable now that I have a better framework for understanding my mind.
hereme888 3y ago
I could have been that guy, and worse. When I was 19 I got caught selling a bunch of MDMA at a night club. Undercover police caught me, and by God's grace they chose to let me go. MDMA had just begun to carry a minimum 10 yr prison sentence throughout the state. I had no idea what I was doing in my life, like I was asleep and not awake, until I got caught that night. About 15 minutes into the interrogation at the scene, Officer Garcia - I still remember him - knowing my mental state of panic and realization of reality, said to me "You know, when I was your age I did the same thing, and I was forgiven and let go. So what I'm going to do is forgive you and let you go this time. Go home, and don't ever do this again." I drove home at about half the speed limit that night, trying to process what had happened. First time I had experienced such forgiveness and mercy. The aim of my life now is to maximize the amount of good I can do for others. I'll never forget. I could still be in prison. Maybe as an open source computer programmer, but prison nonetheless. It's a big risk to let someone go like that; will they actually repent, or continue causing harm?
- qingcharles 3y ago
  That man gave you your entire life back. It's not just the time you would have served, but it would have ruined so much of the rest of your life too.
  - verisimi 3y ago
    He did give him back his life. But how is it possible that his life was at risk at all? Why a 10 year sentence for taking drugs? The government should simply not have that power.
    - Obscurity4340 3y ago
      Its kind of ironic that most law and order folks would consider this an example or dirty cops being dirty or privilegeor whatever. The fact is, this stuff doesn't really seem to happen anymore unless you're the Prime Ministers wife or something
      - 3y ago
goodboyjojo 3y ago
this was a cool read. i hope you get out soon and be a software dev somewhere
nopmike 3y ago
It's a little late, so this will get buried, but I had a similar experience. I caught two felonies (both from the same incident) Luckily, I had a good job at the time and it was my first offense, so I was able to get house arrest. After seeing what could have been my life, I completed my BS in CS, online part-time and convinced the state of California to let me move there. I received five years of probation, so even though I was off house arrest, I had to convince the state of California to take me as a probationer. I don't think this is usually offered, even though I had gainful employment waiting for me. I feel very fortunate. Since then, I've worked for various startups and Fortune 50 companies as a software engineer. I was lucky enough that the tech industry valued me more for my skills than punished me for my past. I will be forever grateful to the state of California and the tech industry for this. I've looked into, and tried to volunteer for various programs that try to teach inmates or felons technical/engineering skills. All have fallen through. I'd love to hear what you're working on OP, and if you want to brainstorm a way we can try and help more inmates turn their life around through software development.
- frob 3y ago
  Thank you for sharing your story. It's wonderful that you want to pay your fortunes forward. I don't think they work directly in prisons and jails, but https://www.underdogdevs.org/ https://www.underdogdevs.org/ is a group that works to train formerly incarcerated people in software and tech. They built mentee/mentor relationships between professional development and those wanting to learn.
- dvektor 3y ago
  Thanks for sharing this.. send me an email if you'd like. preston@unlockedlabs.org
zubairq 3y ago
Amazing read
frankyg 3y ago
MDMA either puts me to sleep or makes me talk faster than freaking Busta Rhymes raps, without effort. I recorded it once and it's crystal clear. Fun stuff. Need to get to the science of that mechanism.
- Frivolous9421 3y ago
  My experience with MDMA is that it just feels like weaker meth which would sure explain it
  - frankyg 3y ago
    Haven't tried Meth yet. Jessa Reed almost inspired it couple o' years back when I was at my weakest but when her teeth fell out in the middle of an interview I decided to wait into my late 50s.
cbsudux 3y ago
Great post

925 points by low_tech_love 3y ago

I’m really happy that you found a way out of the trafficking life. That was a really nice thing to read and I think a lot of people will resonate with it. (Computer nerds that had tough times in life). I’m wishing you all the best in your fight against addiction and I’m definitely adding Unlocked Labs to my list of donations. Thanks for sharing your story.

sgu999 3y ago

I'm always amazed at this country in which incarcerating someone for 10 years (!!) for non violent drug dealing is economical, but public healthcare and education aren't.

DragonL80 3y ago
This comment is everything. Not to mention that due to understaffed and over budget facilities, rehabilitation programs are generally the first things to get cut.
mckn1ght 3y ago
It starts to make more sense when you look at the 13th amendment: > Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction. Private prisons are in the business of cheap labor, not rehabilitation. It would be extremely expensive to effectively change the lifestyles of millions of people and treat their addiction, not to mention those around them who become traumatized due to their mistakes and follow in their footprints. We simply lack the necessary amount of political will to do an end run around this by decriminalizing harmful drugs and providing safer pathways of use that can lead to treatment for addiction. Partially because, again, cheap labor! But no doubt also due to moral puritanism. I’m happy to see there is some movement in state constitutions to do away with this kind of punishment, and even house/senate resolutions proposed to amend the federal constitution, although I don’t know what’s become of that effort.
- sgu999 3y ago
  > Private prisons are in the business of cheap labor, not rehabilitation. How so? From that post and a few others I've read touching on the topic, it didn't seem obvious that prisoners are being put to work.
  - mckn1ght 3y ago
    A quick internet search brings up various things, here’s just one: https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2023/01/01/louisiana-prison-labor-ballot-slavery/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2023/01/01/louisiana-p...
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]

wscourge 3y ago

This lays in a similar domain with a french startup named Vainu that back in 2019 started to use incarcerated people for data labelling. Look it up.

nayuki 3y ago

Parts of Preston Thorpe's story of redemption have similarities to Andreas Kling: https://awesomekling.github.io/I-quit-my-job-to-focus-on-SerenityOS-full-time/ https://awesomekling.github.io/I-quit-my-job-to-focus-on-Ser... > It was October 2018 and I had just completed a 3-month rehab program at a state addiction clinic in Sweden. I was unemployed, staying with family, and had basically nothing going on. > With no drugs or other vices to pass the time, the days seemed impossibly long. I struggled to find activities to fill them. I enrolled in school for a while, but it wasn’t for me this time either. Eventually I turned to programming, since it’s always been my big interest in life.

marcofloriano 3y ago

Preston Thorpe, about your epiphany moment, any possible relationship with Jesus ?

macintux 3y ago

I hate to quote so much of the post—it's well worth a read—but I think it's bookended by two very different experiences that convey so much about the U.S. prison system. > A few years later, I left prison with $0 in my pocket (lawyers and commissary are expensive, and nobody pays you what they owe you when you come in), to a rooming house with hallways that smelled like crack-smoke and were filled with parole officers and junkies. I was left with the difficult choice of either living there and walking to a temp agency with hopes of making $10.50/hour doing manual labor (without an ID or social security card at this point), or getting on a bus to NYC to see some associates, and coming back in a week or so with $15-25k in my pocket and living in comfy luxury hotels until I could rent an apartment… I chose the latter, obviously, and was back in prison after 14mo. ...and later: > I am very grateful for the opportunity, but I recognize that this is very much the exception and not the rule, and the success of the Maine model of corrections should highlight the absolutely embarrassing lack of opportunities in the rest of the system, to do anything but become a bitter, broke criminal; deprived of not just your freedom, family, financial security and reputation, but also of your self-identity as someone worth investing in changing. We need to do better as a society, and understand that, yes, there are people in the system that deserve this kind of punishment, but a large majority of our prison population are just regular people… non-violent drug offenders like myself. There are plenty more, like me, that are capable of being responsible, productive, tax paying members of society if given the opportunity, but you cannot expect anyone to change when you just lock them up in a cage with a bunch of other criminals where there is a subculture of endless negativity.

k1ns 3y ago
Prisons in the USA are for-profit enterprises that rely on a consistent population. They have no incentive to rehabilitate, in fact it's the opposite. What I don't understand is how a country with so many advantages like the USA could come up with arguably the worst prison system in the world. As a citizen, it's embarrassing that this is accepted by those in power as a good solution.
- pcl 3y ago
  As it turns out, Maine (where the author of the article ended up) has gotten rid of all their for-profit prisons, as of 2020. https://www.criminon.org/where-we-work/united-states/maine/ https://www.criminon.org/where-we-work/united-states/maine/

gavinhoward 3y ago

This is an incredible post, and I encourage everyone to read it. I wish I knew better how to help incarcerated people. Based on the Norway(?) model, I feel like help would reduce return rates, but I don't know how to go about it.

dleslie 3y ago
There are reasonable suggestions for organizations to support, at the bottom of the post.
- gavinhoward 3y ago
  Yes, though supporting an organization always feels like expecting someone else to do the hard work. I'd like to do more.
  - kelnos 3y ago
    Have you considered writing to some of these organizations and asking them if you can volunteer your time?
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
  - frob 3y ago
    Recidiviz is hiring: https://angel.co/company/recidiviz/jobs https://angel.co/company/recidiviz/jobs
    - macintux 3y ago
      Apropos of nothing, that jobs site is technically-challenged. Recidiviz has 2 jobs posted, but looking at the filters, there are apparently 3 available in NYC or SF (and no "remote" filter, despite the fact that both jobs are listed as remote, NYC, or SF).
3y ago

causality0 3y ago

I don't at all care for the way in which he mentions his crimes were nonviolent and tells us about being arrested for dealing ecstasy (a drug with little taboo associated with it) while skipping over the fact he's currently in prison for dealing choke-on-your-own-vomit synthetic opiods, not cute party drugs. That stuff killed a coworker's son a few years ago. Died right in his own recliner.

edgyquant 3y ago
Yeah this guy belongs in jail and clearly doesn’t think what he did was a problem at all. In the midst of an epidemic that kills tens of thousands of Americans a year the dealers of these drugs make the front page and are cheered on as “victims.” The victims here are the families and children of the people whose abuse he profited greatly off of.
- RandomLensman 3y ago
  The guy is in jail and is serving his sentence. I could understand given recent scandals with opioids that people view perhaps justice in this area as "patchy", though.
  - throwaway626 3y ago
    It’s some strange bias that lets people get worked up about this one already-convicted dealer but pass over in silence the pharmaceutical companies that designed these opioids to be so addictive and marketed them so aggressively so that doctors would over-prescribe them.
    - trogdor 3y ago
      I don’t know anyone who is ignoring their culpability. There has been an enormous amount of litigation against pharmaceutical companies in relation to opioids, resulting in tens of billions of dollars in settlements.
      - 3y ago

admissionsguy 3y ago

> particularly those affected by the war on drugs, like myself, who has spent 1/3 of his life imprisoned for non-violent drug crimes Still not quite ready to take responsibility for his actions... You weren't magically "affected" by the war on drugs. You went into crime for the easy money, but found out you weren't very good at avoiding getting caught.

deleted 3y ago
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fabianhjr 3y ago
Meanwhile working class people have lesser and lesser purchasing power to the point were renting and homeownership are out of their reach; subemployment / "gig" employment ("innovating" by removing without workers rights) is rampant. Nothing like a system that produces a high amount of marginalized / vulnerable people and then blames them for going for "easy" money like drugs or prostitution. I would expect the tech crowd here to be more inclined towards blameless postmortems / systemic safety.
mordae 3y ago
It's not like they've scammed others with crypto or tried to overtake markets with price dumping tactics or bribed the governments to use their software or spied on billions for profit. They've just lorried stuff other poor people wanted. That should not be illegal. The above should.

gavinray 3y ago

You might consider emailing him. It's lonely in jail/prison. Suddenly everyone you thought were your closest friends don't speak a word to you again. If you're lucky, you've got a wife or parents that'll write to you or take your calls.

qingcharles 3y ago
Wow, I know you've been locked up, brother. Nobody will take your call the second you step inside a jail. Best man at your wedding? He's not picking up, I promise you. Literally nobody will call you or write to you. You will get nothing except maybe from your mother. If you are married, forget it. Humans only like to associate with success. Once you seem to be failing literally nobody will want to even speak to you.
- gavinray 3y ago
  https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/fair-weather_friend#Noun https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/fair-weather_friend#Noun
  - ge96 3y ago
    Exploring the wasteland this song plays
low_tech_love 3y ago
I wanted to contact him to tell him that he was wrong (he got to the front page without using any of his proposed techniques [1]) but I couldn’t find the e-mail. I have no LinkedIn either; right now I almost feel like submitting an issue to one of his github repos just to get his attention. Can you point me to his e-mail address? [1] https://pthorpe92.github.io/humor/How-to-get-on-hackernews-front-page/ https://pthorpe92.github.io/humor/How-to-get-on-hackernews-f...
- gavinray 3y ago
  I got it from his GitHub page: https://github.com/PThorpe92 https://github.com/PThorpe92 His email is preston@unlockedlabs.org

RecycledEle 3y ago

The apparent lack of opportunities for anyone is easy to solve with Dorm Room Welfare: Open free dorms next to the campuses of community colleges. Anyone who is physically able to live on their own, but who can not afford to live on their own can move in and live there as long as they are working towards being economically self sufficient. Working towards being economically self sufficient can mean passing academic classes, passing career and technical education classes, taking remedial classes, completing a high school equivalency degree, passing K-12 classes online, earning certifications, working in internships, working jobs at a training wage, or other things I suggest we replace all other welfare programs with drom room welfare. This does not solve the problem that many of us do not want to hire convicted criminals.

gavinray 3y ago
> This does not solve the problem that many of us do not want to hire convicted criminals. Thank you for at least acknowledging this. I'd wager that if people with convictions on their record, had even a 10-20% chance of being hired at a decent establishment, we'd see recidivism go down by a statistically significant amount. I know the justice system. The grand majority of folks coming in and out of prison genuinely do not want better for themselves, it's a lifestyle choice that they've accepted (or resigned themselves to, depending on how you look at it). But for the fractional percentage of incarcerated individuals that DO decide "Okay, I've had enough, I'm done with this and I want better for myself" and mean it, they aren't afforded such a luxurious opportunity for a bland life in suburbia.
- RecycledEle 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - freedomben 3y ago
    That's genuinely horrifying, and I don't find many opinions horrifying. Are you being serious or trolling? If serious, I hope people don't kill your comment because this is one I think should be discussed.

mmaunder 3y ago

The is incredibly inspirational. It’s a light we can potentially use to guide our prison system out of the dark ages.

arbuge 3y ago

>> the success of the Maine model of corrections should highlight the absolutely embarrassing lack of opportunities in the rest of the system Very well said. And I am glad we have a model now, if one was ever needed. I hope other prison systems take note.

frob 3y ago
As someone actively working in this space, I can tell you they are. Maine is following the so-called Scandinavian Model. It essentially comes down to giving incarcerated people a chance to practice normal daily activities and social interactions. The facilities feel more like highly secure dorms than jails. The way a head of a different DoC said still sticks with me: We send people away for years, tell them exactly what to do every day and they get to make exacrly one choice every day: do you obey or not? That's the only choice you get to make. Then, after 3, 5, 10 years, we send them out into society and tell them, "Make better choices." But we haven't prepared them for that at all. We have given them almost no chances to make decisions and learn how to make good ones. We just tell them the decision to make and they do it. There's no space for practicing good decisions in traditional prison settings. Multiple other states are pointing to Maine as proof that the Scandinavian model can work in the US and are incorporating their learnings into their plans and trainings.
- bboles 3y ago
  We send people away for years, tell them exactly what to do every day and they get to make exacrly one choice every day: do you obey or not? That's the only choice you get to make. Then, after 3, 5, 10 years, we send them out into society and tell them, "Make better choices." But we haven't prepared them for that at all. We have given them almost no chances to make decisions and learn how to make good ones. We just tell them the decision to make and they do it. There's no space for practicing good decisions in traditional prison settings. This really puts things in perspective. Thank you for sharing!
- vt85 3y ago
  [dead]
3y ago

wavemode 3y ago

I guess I read this blog post very differently from many other commenters. I don't see this as being entitled or avoiding responsibility for his actions. He's just telling his story. He knows he fucked up. But he also knows the system is fucked. If you can't possibly understand how growing up without positive influences can lead someone to a life of crime, you're probably too privileged to be the target audience of this article. Just move on.

lynx23 3y ago
[flagged]
- ocdtrekkie 3y ago
  Dude was already in crime at 17. He didn't really have any time with the luxuries of adulthood to figure out his own life.
  - lynx23 3y ago
    I was deep into rave culture at that age. Lets just say I know the "deal". However, I always knew I would never sell, because, surprise, I knew the penalty was not worth it. So, I actually know what I am talking about here, and still lack sympathy. Risk taken, game lost. Simple.
    - ocdtrekkie 3y ago
      It's great your ability to judge risk and reward at age 17 was so solid, but for many it is not. Brain development does not stop that early. I think the difference in culpability between a bad decision at age 17 and say, a bad decision at age 23 is huge.
      - closewith 3y ago
        More importantly, the fact the GP believes the risk was not worth it shows that their situation was far better than that of many people. Crime is a risk worth taking in many cases.

JessicaHicklin 3y ago

Whatever people are incarcerated for, the fact of the matter is that 95% of the people currently incarcerated in the US will one day live next door to one or more of us. Isn't it better to prepare them to live there, self-sufficent and contributing to society? (Disclosure: I am the Cofounder of Unlocked Labs, Preston's current employer and formerly incarcerated myself). I can say without hesitation, Preston is an incredible employee whom I am happy we provided this opportunity for.

gavinray 3y ago
Great to see you here Jessica =) I didn't realize Unlocked was your organization.
- JessicaHicklin 3y ago
  Nice to see you in the conversation as well and yes, I am a cofounder
ulizzle 3y ago
There are a lot of historical examples arguing for and against you. But murder and rape is far different than getting popped for heroin or selling weed and our laws already reflect that
- zamalek 3y ago
  Rehabilitation is rehabilitation. In contrast, the American system aims for penance, which is why we call it penetentiary. You have to "pay for your actions" - which has absolutely nothing to do with rehabilitation and preventing recidivism. Paying for your actions is deeply ingrained is the American zeitgeist - making the concept of favoring rehabilitation appear immoral. Regardless, it could be argued that rehabilitating a perpetrator of more severe crimes is a harsher form of punitive justice. Living with your (newly acquired) guilt and regret about your actions is more difficult than hanging out with, and learning from, your peers in crime university - prison. Also, selling heroin is often manslaughter.
- 3y ago

JessicaHicklin 3y ago

Whether you feel sympathy for Preston or not, the fact of the matter is that 95% of the incarcerated individuals in the US will one day love next to you and me. Wouldn't you rather they be prepared to live there, to have a job and resources? To be self-sufficient (Preston will not need welfare resources when he returns because of this opportunity)? (Disclosure, I am Preston's employer and formerly incarcerated myself)

imafounderlolhi 3y ago
you're a mentally ill tr4nny who murdered someone during a meth deal. amazing how the few "sweetheart articles" online fail to mention this.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- piperswe 3y ago
  how is her gender relevant at all?

FpUser 3y ago

It is incredible story. I wish you all all the good luck you can get and happy life after you get out of prison. I also wish that prison systems in the US and Canada will adopt this "Scandinavian" model. So much better to put people back on right track instead of being vengeful fucks who would chase person the end of their days,

EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 3y ago

Wait, do they have computer and internet access in prison?? And free meals, healthcare and lodging? I might have taken that deal when I was young, busting my ass at shit jobs and renting shit places with crazy roommates.

imtringued 3y ago
I don't know what to tell you, but the quality of the roommates doesn't get better in prison.

TacticalCoder 3y ago

TFA is interesting but I've got a problem with this: > I was left with the difficult choice of either living there and walking to a temp agency with hopes of making $10.50/hour doing manual labor (without an ID or social security card at this point), or getting on a bus to NYC to see some associates, and coming back in a week or so with $15-25k in my pocket and living in comfy luxury hotels until I could rent an apartment I chose the latter, obviously, and was back in prison after 14mo. That is not obvious. My father was left with nothing at some point in his life, living like a hobo in an abandoned, broken, leaking RV next to gypsies (heck, he'd even, for free, help the gypsies' kids with "homework"). And he was still proud --and still is-- of never having done anything illegal. People choose to engage in crime, and there's nothing obvious about it. Nobody needs the latest iPhone or the latest sneakers. They believe they "flex" with the latest iPhone and sneakers (I've got a whole different idea of flexing btw but that'd be another topic). They choose the easy path. And that is not obvious at all. Most poor people and by very, very, very far, even most hobos, are not thieves and are not drug dealers. When you deal drugs you have on your conscience how miserable you make the lives of so many others: it's not even about legality here. I had a friend and roommate at one point (and still friend to this day), we'd split rent and he'd barely make any money. Serving pitas at a tiny kebab/pita place three nights a week for hardly any money. And he was okay with that. He didn't care about clothes or cars or phones or fancy hotel rooms or whatever. He'd just be honest and survive. What I'd like to know is why people believe it's "obvious" they choose a criminal life for $25 K a week instead of an honest life flipping burgers. It's not obvious and that mindset of "fancy luxury hotel rooms" and "latest iPhone" should just die. Nobody is impressing anyone with these utterly pointless bullshit.

_dark_matter_ 3y ago
Asking newly-release prisoners to have the absolute strongest constitution and pain endurance is also not obvious to me. The average person would struggle in this situation, and we expect formerly-incarcerate individuals to be even stronger than them? It doesn't offend me at all to see it highlighted as "obvious" to the author. For some high proportion of these individuals, it is obvious (and indeed seems like the only choice).

hermitcrab 3y ago

I recently read a book about experiences in the UK prison system: 'A Bit of a Stretch: The Diaries of a Prisoner' by Chris Atkins (there is an associated podcast, which is also excellent). It is a fascinating, but rather depressing read about his experiences being incarcerated for tax fraud and how broken the UK prison system is. It is no wonder the re-offending rates are so high. I'm guessing much of the US system (where I understand a lot more for-profit private companies are involved) is at least as broken.

qingcharles 3y ago
As a Brit prisoner in the USA I understand the that USA systems are far, far worse than the UK systems.
- supertofu 3y ago
  Are you in contact with your family at all?
  - qingcharles 3y ago
    I apologise if that comment made it seem like I was currently incarcerated. I've been out for a few months now. Yes, in contact with my brother. No other family interested in contact any longer. Mother died while I was locked up :(
    - supertofu 3y ago
      I'm sorry to hear about your mom. I'm glad there is at least one family member there for you.

zoogeny 3y ago

> Who else has an opportunity to spend 12+ hours a day learning something for years? With no other obligations or responsibilities? Totally tangential, but this prison article reminded me of a short story by Cory Doctorow about a monastery for programmers. I imagined living in a room about the size of my home office, a bed, a desk, a decent MacBook Pro and a high-speed connection and just hanging out on the Internet all day reading articles and programming. Food and shelter taken care of, no obligations or responsibilities. Like the pictures of Norwegian prison cells. That reminded me of a weird Internet streamer collective started by a Twitch streamer named Athene. He started a group called The Singularity Group [1] which allowed people to move into a house to volunteer work on philanthropic projects. They are responsible for the AI Jesus [2] channel on Twitch. There is some controversy since some see the streamer as having tried to start a cult [3]. They also created a few mobile games that run on their own crypto-currency. At any rate, it is all quite interesting to me. It was very common in the past in almost all cultures for a certain number of men to just reject society and go off into hermitage. Sometimes those hermits would band together into brotherhoods. Often they would make beer, or honey or some other collective task to earn enough money for the members to spend the rest of their time in quiet contemplation. I can imagine such a life might be attractive to a lot of programmers who tend to be introverted and feel alien to normal society. 1. https://singularitygroup.net/ https://singularitygroup.net/ 2. https://www.twitch.tv/ask_jesus https://www.twitch.tv/ask_jesus 3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDAkkiwmmBQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDAkkiwmmBQ

wavemode 3y ago
Athene was indeed trying to start a cult (it had all the basic elements). And from watching him speak in the past, he did seem to me like a huge narcissist. Haven't been following his latest projects much, and I can't speak to how the Singularity group has changed since back then. Though I have seen his AI channel sometimes. It's moderately entertaining.
- zoogeny 3y ago
  I cant't comment directly on whether or not he was or wasn't actually trying to start a cult, but I am interested in cults in general (and any kind of esoteric/occult stuff) so I devoured a lot of content related to this. I mean, a 21st century digital cult!? That is some juicy stuff! What I found was a young idealistic kid who was playing a character online. He was optimizing for views and we all know what kind of behavior gets attention online. The character was overblown and narcissistic. There is zero argument from me that if you take selected clips of him from when he was at the height of his streaming fame he was a dumb-ass edge-lord playing the role of a prophet or spiritual leader. He even leaned into it when he was accused because he thought it was funny. But when you watch recent videos of him (he does a pretty good react to Asmongold's react of him), I think I saw a different side. All that being said, he isn't a kind of character I trust. He seems to me to be very much the kind of person where the ends justify the means. He has some pretty high ideals, some of which I agree with and others which I am sympathetic towards. It's like Greenpeace or animal rights activists ... even if I agree with their overall goals I often disagree with their methods.

th4tg41 3y ago

What blew my mind is that ~667/100000 or ~.67% of Americans are incarcerated according to the numbers in this post and the population according to the German Wiki page for the US. Wikipedia says it's .531% on the English language website, .629% on the German site. (Don't know which year for either or if juvenile detention is counted on German site.) That is A LOT! A LOT!

overrun11 3y ago
It's largely a function of the much higher rate of violent crime in the United States
rootusrootus 3y ago
The last time this topic came up on HN (not that long ago, a matter of weeks), I dove into the rabbit hole a bit. Turns out that the lion's share of the difference in incarceration rates between the US and other countries comes down to sentencing. Crime-for-crime, the US doles out a lot more time than e.g. Western European nations. A lot of people think it's drug crimes. Not really. Just the same old crimes as everywhere else, punished with 2-3x the amount of time. This is basically what US voters have asked for up until recently. Being tough on crime is a feature for a politician. Three-strikes laws, etc.

andai 3y ago

Well, it looks like he finally did it! https://pthorpe92.github.io/humor/How-to-get-on-hackernews-front-page/ https://pthorpe92.github.io/humor/How-to-get-on-hackernews-f...

andai 3y ago
Edit: He says he posted this literally yesterday. LOL

ghuntley 3y ago

Today he reached a personal goal - https://pthorpe92.github.io/humor/How-to-get-on-hackernews-front-page/ https://pthorpe92.github.io/humor/How-to-get-on-hackernews-f...

andai 3y ago
The site doesn't show the date, but I emailed him and he says he posted it yesterday. Ain't that just the way!

Nimitz14 3y ago

Awesome and amazing.

codingrightnow 3y ago

As a former software engineer for over a decade and current corrections officer in a max level state facility, this is a very interesting topic. My facility has a large college presence within it. While there are problems with it, I think overall it is probably a net positive for the staff and inmates. At the same time, I don't believe that we have more than maybe a small handful of nonviolent/drug offenders; anybody on the outside advocating for murderers, rapists, and those in for armed robbery to have access to more of the normal comforts of the outside world is going to have a hard time and not much support. Even the medium level prisons have those types of people in them. So what facilities would wider access to remote learning and work become available? There would need to be honor facilities inmates must work towards proving they're responsible enough to be transferred to. Right now budgets are being slashed, we're at 60% staffing as it is, and the whole state is in the shit. And this is a "progressive liberal" state. It would probably take the federal government to start throwing money around for pilot programs, no state is going to increase their prison budget to accommodate this.

strix_varius 3y ago
Thanks for more first hand insight, from a related but different perspective. I'm curious: what led you to leave software engineering? SWE to corrections officer sounds like a rare journey.
- codingrightnow 3y ago
  My life circumstances were such that I needed a job in a new area where that's all I was qualified to do (meaning I can breathe) while earning enough to live on. Software engineering is not an option within 90 minutes of here. Even if I could get a job in software here and it paid the same, software is significantly more stressful than my current job, the future is unsure as tech is always changing, the people I work with are closer and more friendly/outgoing, and the time off is amazing. When I leave work I'm done, there's no reading up on/practicing the latest stack without any guarantees it's going to increase my employability. When I walk out of the prison, my own personal life is all need to think about. I'd probably not take the job for less than a 50% increase in what I make now. And wages here are so low it just wouldn't happen. I do still enjoy coding but I like it as a hobby. And honestly, I was probably never very good at it.

j7ake 3y ago

If I get locked up maybe I would finally get to doing the exercises from the art of computer programming.

alfnor 3y ago
It isn't the worst deal because you don't have to worry about paying rent, so you can just focus 100% on getting good at whatever skillset you choose to pursue.

jasonlotito 3y ago

> kicked out of my parents house for being a stupid 17yr old That's child abuse in my book. If you are a parent, you are responsible for your children. That's it. No age limit. Nothing. They need a place? You are responsible for providing them a place to live. This isn't to say you have to be responsible for their crimes, but you should never be allowed to force your child out of your house. YOU brought them into this world. They are your responsibility. Forcing a child out? You are a terrible parent. Yes, some children thrive, but others don't. I'm sorry, but it's on you. If you aren't ready to take care of your children or make sure they are taken care of for the remainder of their life, you shouldn't have children. 18 and you force them out? You are in the wrong.

rootusrootus 3y ago
That's pretty harsh. Children turn into adults, and not all of them turn out great. As a parent my responsibility is to get them to adulthood with as much chance of success as it is possible for me to provide. At some point they do absolutely become responsible for their own decisions. Do I ever want to find out what it would take to throw my own child out of the house? Of course not. Am I going to toss them out when they turn 18? No plans to. But this idea that you should be responsible for another adult for the rest of their life just because you created them...? That's silly.
- sevagh 3y ago
  In this case the one singular event of being kicked out at a specifically vulnerable age of 17-18. The rest of their life was influenced by that.
- jasonlotito 3y ago
  > That's pretty harsh. Children turn into adults, No, it's not. It's reality. And you only think it's harsh because you are ignorant. And that ignorance will not prepare you for reality. > But this idea that you should be responsible for another adult for the rest of their life just because you created them...? That's silly. No, it's reality. And if you think otherwise, you are not ready to be a parent. Or you'll have a rude awakening when it turns out you are wrong. Maybe you get lucky and they are able to support themselves, but if you think you raising them to 18 means you are done, it just means you are ignorant. > Children turn into adults, No, they don't and that's your ignorance. Not all children grow up to be adults mentally. Not all children grow up. There are numerous conditions that mean you are responsible for them for the rest of their life, ensuring they get the care they need. And trying to wave that off as the exception, it just means that you are ignorant. You should go into being a parent understanding that this might happen. I see way too many parents throwing their kids into the water and letting them sink or swim. Sorry, but if they drown, it's on you as the parent. You failed them. You are the failure. And that's child abuse, and people that think like that are worthless. Do better.

Fischgericht 3y ago

I'd like to make a couple of points to think about: I'd been addicted to opioids for a couple of years. And I was very happy that I was able to get original non-counterfeit pills on the dark net, from vendors that had thousands of positives reviews. Being a nerd, and successful when it comes to business, risk-free supply had never been an issue. Luckily I bought Bitcoin when they did cost $0.20... Fighting the dark net has always been a stupid idea. It's the cleanest way for people to get the substances they need, with the lowest amount of risk in every single regard. Lowest risk to get your substance cut with something unhealthy, lowest risk of getting ripped off, lowest risk of getting into criminal circles. Fighting the dark net means pushing people to street dealers, increasing suffering, violent crime and deaths. So, why did I get addicted? Depressions, anxiousness, and finally: Being on the autistic spectrum, which now seems absolutely obvious from earliest childhood memories, but my parents never took me to a neurologist to get that diagnosed. I just lived with being "different". Until I could not take it anymore, and tried to help myself with substances. How did I get off the addiction? Did a search for the best-rated neurologist in the region, made an appointment, got treatment. It took a while, but in the end a combination of substances was found that worked out better than opiates. But that being said: Those substances are the same that I can get as prescription medication, or as "drugs" on the street. It's just that now I no longer have to spend Bitcoin on it, but get them for free from the health care system. Yay! Please remind yourself: Nearly everything that is taken and sold as "drugs" on the streets is used to treat some problem, just in a very dangerous way, without proper education, without proper risk management. Whatever that scary drug that your parents and your school are warning you about to be evil: It's just medication. The poor people die on the street trying to get their supply, the rich guys get a subscription to get it for free. If your country has a problem with drugs on the street, and with crime due to people trying to get those substances, your country SIMPLY HAS A PROBLEM PROVIDING HEALTH CARE to its citizens! So please stop demonizing substances, demonizing substance "abuse", demonizing people providing those substances in a clean and safe way via the dark net, and demonizing people who sadly did not have the luck of their health care system helping them. And go fix your health care systems.

supertofu 3y ago
I resonate with this comment strongly. I have never been diagnosed, but I strongly suspect I am neurodivergent. My extreme social isolation/anxiety in my college years and twenties led me to dependency on alcohol and cannabis. I never tried hard drugs, but my life back then was just one tiny twist of fate away from me becoming an opioid addict. I did manage to become sober, and a lot of social challenges have become more manageable now that I have a better framework for understanding my mind.

hereme888 3y ago

I could have been that guy, and worse. When I was 19 I got caught selling a bunch of MDMA at a night club. Undercover police caught me, and by God's grace they chose to let me go. MDMA had just begun to carry a minimum 10 yr prison sentence throughout the state. I had no idea what I was doing in my life, like I was asleep and not awake, until I got caught that night. About 15 minutes into the interrogation at the scene, Officer Garcia - I still remember him - knowing my mental state of panic and realization of reality, said to me "You know, when I was your age I did the same thing, and I was forgiven and let go. So what I'm going to do is forgive you and let you go this time. Go home, and don't ever do this again." I drove home at about half the speed limit that night, trying to process what had happened. First time I had experienced such forgiveness and mercy. The aim of my life now is to maximize the amount of good I can do for others. I'll never forget. I could still be in prison. Maybe as an open source computer programmer, but prison nonetheless. It's a big risk to let someone go like that; will they actually repent, or continue causing harm?

qingcharles 3y ago
That man gave you your entire life back. It's not just the time you would have served, but it would have ruined so much of the rest of your life too.
- verisimi 3y ago
  He did give him back his life. But how is it possible that his life was at risk at all? Why a 10 year sentence for taking drugs? The government should simply not have that power.
  - Obscurity4340 3y ago
    Its kind of ironic that most law and order folks would consider this an example or dirty cops being dirty or privilegeor whatever. The fact is, this stuff doesn't really seem to happen anymore unless you're the Prime Ministers wife or something
    - 3y ago

goodboyjojo 3y ago

this was a cool read. i hope you get out soon and be a software dev somewhere

nopmike 3y ago

It's a little late, so this will get buried, but I had a similar experience. I caught two felonies (both from the same incident) Luckily, I had a good job at the time and it was my first offense, so I was able to get house arrest. After seeing what could have been my life, I completed my BS in CS, online part-time and convinced the state of California to let me move there. I received five years of probation, so even though I was off house arrest, I had to convince the state of California to take me as a probationer. I don't think this is usually offered, even though I had gainful employment waiting for me. I feel very fortunate. Since then, I've worked for various startups and Fortune 50 companies as a software engineer. I was lucky enough that the tech industry valued me more for my skills than punished me for my past. I will be forever grateful to the state of California and the tech industry for this. I've looked into, and tried to volunteer for various programs that try to teach inmates or felons technical/engineering skills. All have fallen through. I'd love to hear what you're working on OP, and if you want to brainstorm a way we can try and help more inmates turn their life around through software development.

frob 3y ago
Thank you for sharing your story. It's wonderful that you want to pay your fortunes forward. I don't think they work directly in prisons and jails, but https://www.underdogdevs.org/ https://www.underdogdevs.org/ is a group that works to train formerly incarcerated people in software and tech. They built mentee/mentor relationships between professional development and those wanting to learn.
dvektor 3y ago
Thanks for sharing this.. send me an email if you'd like. preston@unlockedlabs.org

zubairq 3y ago

Amazing read

frankyg 3y ago

MDMA either puts me to sleep or makes me talk faster than freaking Busta Rhymes raps, without effort. I recorded it once and it's crystal clear. Fun stuff. Need to get to the science of that mechanism.

Frivolous9421 3y ago
My experience with MDMA is that it just feels like weaker meth which would sure explain it
- frankyg 3y ago
  Haven't tried Meth yet. Jessa Reed almost inspired it couple o' years back when I was at my weakest but when her teeth fell out in the middle of an interview I decided to wait into my late 50s.

cbsudux 3y ago

Great post