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Even Silicon Valley's Prison Inmates Have Their Own Startup Incubator
pigrabbitbear writes "There's a specific and stereotypical set of activities that spring to mind when you imagine what prison inmates do with their spare time. If there's a yard, they probably hang out, lift weights, get in fights, organize gangs. If there's not a yard, they might read books, write letters, get in fights, organize gangs. They don't write business plans and get giddy over startup ideas. But that's exactly what's happening at San Quentin State Prison, about an hour north of Silicon Valley. For the first time this year, the Last Mile program at the maximum security facility helped five inmates learn the ins and outs of social media and entrepreneurship in an effort to connect those who've been inside for several years with the technological reality of life on the outside. The tricky part about the future forward program is that many of its participants have never used a computer, and, since prison regulations forbid any contact with the outside world, won't be able to use one until they've served their sentences."
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The tricky part about the future forward program is that many of its participants have never used a computer
This was not a problem in dotcom bubble 1.0, I'm not thinking it'll be a problem in dotcom bubble 2.0.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
CS is not IT and the higer ups are MBA's
I have never understood why prisoners should be forbidden from using an *offline* computer. Okay, so maybe they're blocked from the internet--but couldn't they at least learn the stuff they could do offline? Not even letting older prisoners understand how a modern computer even WORKS puts them so far behind the times that it's pretty unlikely they'll ever catch up.
What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
Isn't that part of the punishment/revenge we want to inflict on those in prison? Never being able to function in society again, so they reoffend and stay the hell out of the way of the good, righteous, god-fearing folk.
helped five inmates learn
5. Five. 1 2 3 4 5. That would be "five". Given any arbitrary selection criteria, the membership count of the set of prisoners X in that selection criteria set are the natural numbers from 0 to 5 inclusive. Come on /. after you add UTF-8 how about MathML?
many of its participants have never used a computer
Why the vagueness? OK we're operating from five. Remember paper logic puzzles? I used to turn them into prolog statements and let the solver solve them. This was back when a XT with turbo prolog was cutting edge. But I digress. OK its /. logic puzzle time. Rule out 0 because they would have skipped this topic. Rule out 1 because they would have wrote "a" and rule out 5 because they would have written "all". We can rule out 2 because they would have written "a couple" unless they avoided that phrase WRT prison sex and so forth. Which is more, "many" or "several". I believe the informal ranking order is "many" is greater than "several" so of the remaining options 3 or 4, we can circle "4" as the answer.
Thats how I figured out exactly 4 inmates have never used a computer.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
That pretty much describes behavior on the Internet to me.
Those folks should have no problems on the outside.
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3) Practical Technology Training Provide basic computer training in the critical software tools that are utilized in today’s business sector. Access to the internet is NOT required for this training.
The headline and blog entry are wrong.
You forgot that the US prison system is privatized with 48 states signing a contract that they will make sure all prisons at at least 90% full.
In the past, penology 101 was about rehabilitating, where the inmate had a chance at a job once out. Then it was the incapacitation aspect, where a crook wasn't on the streets. Finally the deterrence aspect of "oh shit, if I do this, I'll end up behind bars."
Now, the goal is simple: The goal is to warehouse every warm body put in the system for the rest of their lives. Rehab? That means an inmate may not commit a new offense and wind up back (which means less money going to the private prison industry.) Judges know this, but are forced to have a conviction ratio or else they will be replaced come election season by a judge who will convict. Cops know this, because if they don't get enough "points" by arrests, the guy who whips out the handcuffs first and asks questions later will get the raises and rank.
You think a private prison who pares staff to the bone and pays their COs $8.00 an hour (compared to the county jail that pays a living wage) gives a shit about computers in the big house? All they care about is that their beds are full, and that there is no footage of riots or gang rapes that will ever leave their walls.
48 states signing a contract that they will make sure all prisons at at least 90% full.
Can you cite / link to that contract?
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
The incentives of the system reward high occupancy. If there were more funding for wardens and prisons who had lower recidivism rates then there'd be less of a clamour for tougher sentencing laws funded by the prison industrial complex, America wouldn't have such an obscenely high incarceration rate, and there'd be a lot less crime committed by inmates after release since there would have been more investment in rehabilitation.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
This is probably among the most reputable links to be found.
Judges know this, but are forced to have a conviction ratio or else they will be replaced come election season by a judge who will convict.
Fail. Epic fail. In the USA, judges don't convict people, juries do. It's prosecutors that have to worry about a conviction rate, not judges. Step away from the keyboard, go back to school and stop cutting your Social Studies classes to post ignorant slop on Slashdot.
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Some company making an offer is not the same as states signing a contract. Typical FUD from HuffPost (and you should never refer to them as "reputable", they're not).
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I have never understood why prisoners should be forbidden from using an *offline* computer.
Actually, they're not, at least in California. I personally know several inmates who are taking college courses "behind bars." The computers aren't Internet-connected, and the instructor collects the flash drives they store their work on between classes, but they have access to computers for educational purposes. Some inmate clerks also have access to computers (non-networked) for typing and other clerical tasks.
In the federal system, they're even experimenting with the very limited and locked down TRULINCS email system for inmates...
What's not accurate is the summary's claim that "prison regulations forbid any contact with the outside world." Inmates routinely contact the outside world through telephone calls, letters, and contact and/or non-contact (and in California and New York, for most inmates, the possibility of "family" a/k/a "trailer" a/k/a/ "conjugal") visits...
On a related topic, anyone remember the Wired article on Roy Wahlberg? "Roy Wahlberg hacked a man to death, then hacked his way into a million-dollar software business behind bars."
geek. lawyer.
I don't know what it's like at that particular prison, but I know that in some parts of the US being too nice to prisoners results in either the locals getting upset that you are being 'soft' or the state politicians getting involved to make sure the prisoners are properly miserable and mistreated. There seems to be a natural instinct for justice, or at least a desire to see more suffering inflicted upon wrongdoers regardless of the impact on rehabilitation and reoffending. It seems people don't want to see prisoners turned straight so much as they want to see prisoners lives properly destroyed, even if this leaves them no option but to return to crime upon their release.
No, I think most people want to see prisoners rehabilitated, though this is hard to follow through on when they are released into the same economic and cultural mess that got them into trouble in the first place.
What I think people don't want is to see prisoners be provided things like cable TVs with their tax money, when they can't even afford such a luxury themselves.
Then there are private prisons, which don't want to see prisoners rehabilitated at all because that takes away a "resource" from their industry.
What I think people don't want is to see prisoners be provided things like cable TVs with their tax money
Cable TV keeps prisoners docile and distracted. Distracted and docile prisoners are much easier to guard, and cause far less problems.
I would bet that providing them Cable TV actually saves the prison, and therefore the taxpayer, money over the long run (assuming it's not a private prison).
San Quentin, I hate every last mile of you.