4 ms·

I help teach a nonviolent communication program at a nearby prison, and the technological restrictions placed on the prisoners are pretty shocking to me. They

I help teach a nonviolent communication program at a nearby prison, and the technological restrictions placed on the prisoners are pretty shocking to me. They are allowed an electric typewriter with 7K of memory (down from 16K.) The only audio media they are allowed are cassette tapes. DVDs are forbidden, apparently because a shard from one could conceivably be used as a weapon. A co-ordinator of a college program for the inmates told me that they have a CS course, but can't find anyone to teach it because the students will not be allowed to use computers. This despite the fact that there are multiple roomfuls of computers in the prison school. They get to choose between having a TV and receiving packages from the outside once a month (no, I don't see the point of this dichotomy, either, except maybe as a way to save money on inspecting the packages.) Some of the guys I know in there are in for decades at least. I can't imagine them having the education for any kind of gainful employment when they get out.

swalkergibson 13y ago
> I can't imagine them having the education for any kind of gainful employment when they get out. Has this ever been the goal of the justice system in the United States? It seems to me that the primary function is purely punitive and expends very little effort to rehabilitate anyone.
- kiba 13y ago
  It seems to me that the primary function is purely punitive and expends very little effort to rehabilitate anyone. Which stems from humans liking "just deserts" and liking people to be punished for their crimes. A rational theory about deterrence, rehabilitation, and harm reduction may be more humane, but also difficult to implement and propagate through the populace. That being said, we humans are getting better at treating minority and animals.(Say, gay marriage is being legalized in more states) So I have some hope that our treatment of society's most unsympathetic and hated group better will improve as we become more rational and "nicer".
  - jeltz 13y ago
    And some countries, like the Scandinavian ones, have managed to move the focus closer to harm reduction than to punishment. So I believe there is hope for the US too. But I do not think we will ever get rid of outrage in the press about the government not being though on crime, with the right spin that will always get you readers.
- berntb 13y ago
  From a Scandinavian viewpoint, the US prison system looks like the 19th century in many ways. I have no problem with that, longer sentences for repeat offenders with many crimes would be better than rebates(!) on prison time, like in Sweden. Point is, I'm not that judgmental and still I say: Not trying to rehabilitate prisoners so they have good job skills is obviously insane. And totally immoral. More of the prisoners will fail when released; do drugs, commit crimes and end up back in prison. This costs an insane lot of money (prison costs, people not working, health bills, etc). Even worse, it will also destroy the lives of innocent people -- e.g. crime victims and relatives of the prisoners. I can only see two reasons for not putting an emphasis on rehabilitation for job skills: Pure incompetence -- or some economic interest in getting repeat offenders back into prison. tl; dr: No rehabilitation of job skills hurts the economy and innocent people as much as the prisoners. Add extra time to the punishment if more punishment is merited, instead of shooting society in the foot.
  - swalkergibson 13y ago
    > Some economic interest in getting repeat offenders back into prison. Interestingly enough, this actually exists in the US. As crazy as it sounds, there are private prisons that are paid on a per-inmate basis. These corporations typically put their political donations behind candidates who are "tough on crime" to fill their jails and line their pockets. It would be terribly interesting to see what kind of impact these companies have had on the justice system in the US.
    - rolux 13y ago
      Indeed: "In 2012, [the Corrections Corporations of America] sent a letter to 'prison officials in 48 states offering to buy prisons from these states in exchange for a 20-year management contract and a guaranteed occupancy rate of 90%.'" (http://www.annarbor.com/news/opinion/passing-house-bill-will-worsen-already-pressing-civil-rights-issue/ http://www.annarbor.com/news/opinion/passing-house-bill-will...)
    - klausjensen 13y ago
      These corporations and the prison guard unions also lobby hard to keep marijuana illegal, so users and dealers can go to prison.
GuiA 13y ago
> A co-ordinator of a college program for the inmates told me that they have a CS course, but can't find anyone to teach it because the students will not be allowed to use computers. Huh, interesting. It reminds me of this business school assignment where groups were given $5 and were tasked to make as much money form it as possible. The groups who ended up doing the best were the groups who realized that $5 was dangerously close to $0, and just worked on ideas that required no capital to get started instead of figuring out how to best invest the $5. The point being that here, maybe you could teach some sort of math course? Teaching CS stuff like algorithms, theory of computation, etc. without computers. It could be interesting.
mnbvcxza 13y ago
> A co-ordinator of a college program for the inmates told me that they have a CS course, but can't find anyone to teach it because the students will not be allowed to use computers. Where is this?

swalkergibson 13y ago

> I can't imagine them having the education for any kind of gainful employment when they get out. Has this ever been the goal of the justice system in the United States? It seems to me that the primary function is purely punitive and expends very little effort to rehabilitate anyone.

kiba 13y ago
It seems to me that the primary function is purely punitive and expends very little effort to rehabilitate anyone. Which stems from humans liking "just deserts" and liking people to be punished for their crimes. A rational theory about deterrence, rehabilitation, and harm reduction may be more humane, but also difficult to implement and propagate through the populace. That being said, we humans are getting better at treating minority and animals.(Say, gay marriage is being legalized in more states) So I have some hope that our treatment of society's most unsympathetic and hated group better will improve as we become more rational and "nicer".
- jeltz 13y ago
  And some countries, like the Scandinavian ones, have managed to move the focus closer to harm reduction than to punishment. So I believe there is hope for the US too. But I do not think we will ever get rid of outrage in the press about the government not being though on crime, with the right spin that will always get you readers.
berntb 13y ago
From a Scandinavian viewpoint, the US prison system looks like the 19th century in many ways. I have no problem with that, longer sentences for repeat offenders with many crimes would be better than rebates(!) on prison time, like in Sweden. Point is, I'm not that judgmental and still I say: Not trying to rehabilitate prisoners so they have good job skills is obviously insane. And totally immoral. More of the prisoners will fail when released; do drugs, commit crimes and end up back in prison. This costs an insane lot of money (prison costs, people not working, health bills, etc). Even worse, it will also destroy the lives of innocent people -- e.g. crime victims and relatives of the prisoners. I can only see two reasons for not putting an emphasis on rehabilitation for job skills: Pure incompetence -- or some economic interest in getting repeat offenders back into prison. tl; dr: No rehabilitation of job skills hurts the economy and innocent people as much as the prisoners. Add extra time to the punishment if more punishment is merited, instead of shooting society in the foot.
- swalkergibson 13y ago
  > Some economic interest in getting repeat offenders back into prison. Interestingly enough, this actually exists in the US. As crazy as it sounds, there are private prisons that are paid on a per-inmate basis. These corporations typically put their political donations behind candidates who are "tough on crime" to fill their jails and line their pockets. It would be terribly interesting to see what kind of impact these companies have had on the justice system in the US.
  - rolux 13y ago
    Indeed: "In 2012, [the Corrections Corporations of America] sent a letter to 'prison officials in 48 states offering to buy prisons from these states in exchange for a 20-year management contract and a guaranteed occupancy rate of 90%.'" (http://www.annarbor.com/news/opinion/passing-house-bill-will-worsen-already-pressing-civil-rights-issue/ http://www.annarbor.com/news/opinion/passing-house-bill-will...)
  - klausjensen 13y ago
    These corporations and the prison guard unions also lobby hard to keep marijuana illegal, so users and dealers can go to prison.

GuiA 13y ago

> A co-ordinator of a college program for the inmates told me that they have a CS course, but can't find anyone to teach it because the students will not be allowed to use computers. Huh, interesting. It reminds me of this business school assignment where groups were given $5 and were tasked to make as much money form it as possible. The groups who ended up doing the best were the groups who realized that $5 was dangerously close to $0, and just worked on ideas that required no capital to get started instead of figuring out how to best invest the $5. The point being that here, maybe you could teach some sort of math course? Teaching CS stuff like algorithms, theory of computation, etc. without computers. It could be interesting.

mnbvcxza 13y ago

> A co-ordinator of a college program for the inmates told me that they have a CS course, but can't find anyone to teach it because the students will not be allowed to use computers. Where is this?