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Inmates Program Logistics App For Prison
schweini writes "Inmates in an Oklahoma prison developed software that attempts to streamline the prison's food logistics. A state representative found out, and he's trying to get every other prison in Oklahoma to use it, too. According to the Washington Post, 'The program tracks inmates as they proceed through food lines, to make sure they don’t go through the lines twice... It can help the prison track how popular a particular meal is, so purchasers know how much food to buy in the future. And it can track tools an inmate checks out to perform their jobs.' The program also tracks supply shipments into the system, and it showed that food supplier Sysco had been charging different prices for the same food depending on which facility it was going to. Another state representative was impressed, but realized the need for oversight: 'If they build on what they’ve done here, they actually have to script it out. If you have inmates writing code, there has to be a continual auditing process. Food in prison is a commodity. It’s currency.'"
Since the code needs to be audited anyways, it'd be a great chance for an instructor to introduce code reviews and/or pull requests. And maybe during that process, help enlighten other curious inmates as to how the system and programming works.
-- Jim
Your website could be better. Getting weekly feedback is a good starting point.
So.... the prison business in Oklahoma needs an ERP. Wait. Oklahoma. Of course it wasn't obvious to them!
Sounds like the plot of The Shawshank Redemption 2: Electric Bugaboo
How can food in prison be a commodity? Are the prisoners not fed enough?
Finally! A year of moderation! Ready for 2019?
They should already know all of these things through the most basic operations procedures. Oh, but why am I not surprised? Obviously you dont dare hire someone with an MBA to be the COO on a public project because they cant possibly be worth their salary. "Government should be run like a business" except when it comes to actually running it like a business with professional managers.
K. I'll take my down-mods now for suggesting that professionals be involved in management.
It's not supposed to be a currency: prisoners are all supposed to be fed the same thing and are not allowed to swap or trade items.
I don't know where this choice of "popular" comes from: if you don't want to eat something, it gets discarded after being served to you.
In Liberty, Rene
Do I get paid enough? Ask me when the bills are coming in. There is enough for my basic needs and enough for my wants. The same goes for food.
I see a new idea for the Underhanded C Contest.
(Also, you just know those prisons won't have proper physical separation between security infrastructure and logistics.)
How can food in prison be a commodity? Are the prisoners not fed enough?
Is this a real question?
In prison, real currency is not allowed. However, humans are inherently commercial creatures, and consequently a system of barter results in the absence of any kind of hard currency upon which to base trade. What is needed is something with intrinsic value but which is also universally valued by most (if not all) of a population. Food is perfect for this: let's say you want something from another inmate. You may pass on eating a meal, instead giving it to the other guy in exchange for the thing you want. But, if you can go through the line twice, you can have your cake and eat it too.
For your security, this post has been encrypted with ROT-13, twice.
How can food in prison be a commodity? Are the prisoners not fed enough?
Didn't you see that Clint Eastwood Alcatraz movie? How did Al Capone get paid off for a case dime? Dessert, every day for a couple of weeks IIRC.
Time Bomber the Book coming soon.
At least they're learning a skill that will be useful after they get out of prison. No wait ... that was before they shipped all the jobs offshore. I'll bet being a car thief pays better than flipping burgers, so maybe these guys ought to teach economics.
ReiserFS would be perfect for this!
Right, because prison's such a nice place, on account of all the delicious food.
A while back, a contractor was trying to pitch to the private corrections industry another mechanism, ironically named PRISM. It had fiber optic bracelets clapped on the prisoners and was supposed to monitor them at all times, including if two prisoners flagged as enemies were near each other, it would notify the COs, would sound an alarm if a prisoner was too near the perimeter, would sound an alarm if the bracelet was cut (which was going to be an automatic year in solitary), and so on.
Said system never materialized, or had much interest.
Maybe the internal prison developed stuff might be better, but this was already pitched.
Gives a whole new meaning to the phrase "back door"!!!
I'VE BEEN IN A COMA SINCE 2004
>Filter error: Don't use so many caps. It's like 0GG.
Got it in one.
The prison system hopes to convince inmates to integrate harmoniously with society once they are let out by teaching them that society is a heartless bastard and their sworn enemy. Then it creates the necessary conditions for a thriving black market so they won't go into the drug trade.
Just saying, maybe you'd have to continually audit the code.
they should all be served the same glop day by day with no variety so they learn to not misbehave.
Ahhh, the old "floggings will continue until morale improves" gambit.
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Maybe you should talk to a therapist until this sick desire to hurt people goes away.
Can I stop barfing, yet? It's starting to burn my nose.
"Stratigraphically the origin of agriculture and thermonuclear destruction will appear essentially simultaneous" -- Lee
What is needed is something with intrinsic value but which is also universally valued by most (if not all) of a population. Food is perfect for this: let's say you want something from another inmate.
Nota Bene: Food in prison can also be considered a raw material - bread for instance can be turned into alcohol with the right know-how, or fruits fermented for the same purpose.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
I was just thinking, tracking shipments in and out. Were they trying to spy on the escape routes and got caught? "Uhhh, we were trying to help food lines be more efficient, yeah, efficient food lines, that's the ticket..."
there shouldnt be "popular" food. they should all be served the same glop day by day with no variety so they learn to not misbehave.
Problem is, humans require at least some variety of foods in order to achieve basic nutrition. Prisons did try serving something all-inclusive, but apparently it's only used as punishment nowadays, and IIRC some states have banned its use.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
Yeah, doesn't work that way inside.
There are definitely popular food items that are used as currency and if you don't eat all your own food it's likely either someone else will (or you'll be reprimanded), and that dude who eats your leftovers is just going to get that much bigger and stronger because of it. Ever wonder how those guys get so ripped in prison? It's not because of the engineered 3000 calorie a day diet. They steal food, coerce food from other inmates and trade things for extra food.
Apparently not. If everyone can have as much food as they like, the demand does not exceed the supply, and food would be valueless as a currency.
With prisons being run by private companies, I can see an incentive to give the prisoners less to increase the profits.
Or to use it as an (illegal) carrot/stick to get prisoners to behave.
But there is a real problem lurking in having prisoners write logistics software - if prisoners or their capos control the food supply, they can create a shortage, which would boost the value of food as a currency.
Or, they could simply cook their food to increase their self-reliance. As a bonus, it's of no use for the self-sufficient prisoner to grumble about the cook!
Ezekiel 23:20
If you have inmates writing code, there has to be a continual auditing process. Food in prison is a commodity. It’s currency.
Dear Warden:
These inmates have done your job better than you have. They have saved me, the taxpayer, your boss, money.
If these guys can streamline your own systems, I really don't give the least damn if they can live like kings (to the greatest extent possible while locked in a government cage). Fucking let them!.
Most people get fat in prison, not ripped. You're fed a low-quality, high-fat diet, and exercise is strictly limited. It's not like they keep a gym stocked with freeweights ready to be used to smash a guard's face in.
DROP SOAP;
there shouldnt be "popular" food. they should all be served the same glop day by day with no variety so they learn to not misbehave.
Why do you like prison riots? People who actually deal with this, like wardens, say that decent food is a good way to keep the peace. Punishment? Getting locked up behind steel and concrete is punishment even if you get half decent food.
I thought it was banned because it was made out of people?
Everything is better with chainsaws.
Perhaps they could outsource fixing Healthcare.gov to the prisons?
More importantly, they should be served the same *nutritious* glop day by day, to ensure that they don't die in custody of cruel and unusual treatment such as malnutrition.
I am 10,000% certain that nearly every food that is "popular" with institutional crowds is far from healthy.
"Stratigraphically the origin of agriculture and thermonuclear destruction will appear essentially simultaneous" -- Lee
I hear the software runs on an iPhone - but only if Jail Broken...
there are people who go to prison on purpose for shelter, food, tv, air conditioning, healthcare and clothing. think of all the tax dollars we are wasting on their gourmet food.
here in california, the furniture factory at ASP uses a combination of state provided software as well as an inmate written order processing and part requesting software.. the education department also has inmate written software that tracks materials, class progress and achievement. all written using microsoft access 2003, as anything better than that is not allowed.
the state should take advantage of the the technical talent that finds its way into the system. free software development ftw!
everything in prison is money though. not just food.
It is certainly symptomatic of a callous, mean spirited and probably sick individual. But it is also the mindset of many, many Americans. And one of the reasons why we have such a huge prison population.
Food to buy? how about farming the land? Raise cattle,pigs,chickens,eggs. grow as much of there own food as humanly possible with the avable land. Make Mushroom houses for the lifers to work at. One Prison in PA, Gratersfort had hundreds of acres surrounding it. Put them to work save money for us. Would make time go faster also.
Jack of all trades,master of none
If everyone can have as much food as they like, the demand does not exceed the supply, and food would be valueless as a currency.
Not true. Last time I was in jail (Santa Clara County Jail), we could have as much bread and peanut butter as we wanted. Everything else was limited. So nobody went hungry, but the good stuff (meat/desserts) was still used as currency.
With prisons being run by private companies, I can see an incentive to give the prisoners less to increase the profits.
That's a valid concern, although it should be noted in this case that the prison in the story is one of the public ones. (Oklahoma does have some privately-run prisons, but this isn't one of them.)
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
obligatory superjail episode
Depends on the prison.
Backdoors!
(ducks)
Why didn't they get contracted out to work on Healthcare.gov?
so now codeing will pay $0.13 HR + lockup costs.
But may be better then HB1
Not true. Last time I was in jail (Santa Clara County Jail), we could have as much bread and peanut butter as we wanted. Everything else was limited. So nobody went hungry, but the good stuff (meat/desserts) was still used as currency.
In other words, they couldn't have as much as they wanted of meat and desserts - there was an artificial scarcity with the demand higher than the supply. I.e. just what I said earlier.
If prisoners never get served anything that there isn't enough of, food is useless as a currency. If you cannot serve enough [insert item] to satisfy everyone, then serve something else which you can provide enough of. If you do, there will be no food bartering. If you don't, you're introducing an artificial scarcity and encouraging trading and exploitation, where the strong exploit the weak.
While code audits are necessary, code audits by OK bureaucrats is clearly a violation of the 8th amendment.
Most people get fat in prison, not ripped.
True. But not the smarter, motivated prisoners. I'm sure they can find some fatso who will trade protein for extra cupcakes.
Google 'Prison Workout Book'. There are a lot of books out on how to get/stay in shape without gym equipment.
Have gnu, will travel.
Personally I'd have no trouble with hiring someone who'd been incarcerated for something I don't think should be a crime, like possession or growing of cannabis.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
The system continued to be used by various prisons in the state (not all but most of them). Then the decree came on high that the state IT management corp (headed by northropp grumman) would write a new system. Guess what? It still contains code written by him.
We have both since been released, and guess what. It is hard to get a job. So I started my own web design (mostly template wordpress and drupal), and pc repair/consulting business. It has been slowly and hard, but now I am contracting to one of the bigger (but still small) repair firms in town and I am doing okay.
My friend is in a different part of the state and doing pretty well too. We are both lucky that even without internet access, we had and for a while at least, maintained jobs as classroom aides or other computer related jobs and were able to keep our brains relatively up to date with that and trade magazines/books for the decade +/- we were incarcerated.
As we become more and more connected, this becomes less possible. How can you teach an inmate office or photoshop when it requires a live internet connection? Or basic internet literacy for that matter? When an inmate has been inside for 10-25 years and has no clue how to even turn on a PC or tablet, much less send an email, how is he even supposed to apply for more than a day labor or dishwashing position upon his release?
For many it is easier to mooch, steal, or deal than reintegrate, and the educational prospects inside prison are severely hobbled for many reasons. Sure, most of the people who are there did some bad things, some terrible. Some change, some do not. If a person has the true desire to better himself and does not have or is denied the resources, then it is not much better than modern day slavery, and when you look at 'prison industry' it pretty much is.
Now the question is, who is surprised that there is an ex-con on /. ? I was here before too, but under a different name.
Silence is a state of mime.
trading and exploitation, where the strong exploit the weak.
Trading does not imply exploitation. In fact, it implies the opposite: two willing traders. I am a vegetarian, so I when I was in jail, I was happy to trade away the meat, but not the dessert (I love sweet stuff). Several other inmates offered to do my toilet cleaning duty in exchange for the meat. I declined, because I don't actually mind cleaning toilets (as long as I can take a shower when I am done). So I mostly exchanged food for votes on the TV channel. I built up enough votes to watch the PBS Newshour every Friday (when Brooks and Shields do the analysis of the week's news). Sometimes I even had enough votes to watch Gwen Ifill on Washington Week. It was in a county jail, not a "real" prison, and Santa Clara is not a typical county, but I never saw "the strong exploit the weak". Mostly they were a great bunch of guys, and we all cooperated to keep the area clean and running smooth. It was also a great way to improve my conversational Spanish. The food trading was an open and fair process. Nobody was coerced, and nobody ever went hungry.
How can food in prison be a commodity? Are the prisoners not fed enough?
Of course they are. It's easy to make sure they're fed enough since we know all humans require the exact same number of calories a day.
Just like how prisoners are able to safely serve out their sentence (to be separated from society and freedom for a specified amount of time) and aren't subjected to things that aren't part of their punishment (like physical violence and sexual assault by other inmates).
This sounds like an awesome way to give yourself a monopoly on illicit access to these items, imagine all the cheat codes you could plant in the software.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Awesome idea, with but one flaw... ...who is going to hire a ex-convict, especially in a role that most corporations consider to be sensitive?
Companies hire "information wants to be free (Arrrrr!)" and "down with patents/copyright" people all the time. Just ask the NSA.
I hope you get jailed for your CFAA abuses and have to eat gruel from communal bucket.
Yes it is a real question.
You may pass on eating a meal, instead giving it to the other guy in exchange for the thing you want.
If the other guy has sufficient food available, he will not want your meal. Prisoners going hungry seems cruel to me.
Finally! A year of moderation! Ready for 2019?
Yes it is a real question.
Okay, then...let's break this down...
You may pass on eating a meal, instead giving it to the other guy in exchange for the thing you want.
If the other guy has sufficient food available, he will not want your meal.
Exhibit A: epidemic obesity. All kinds of people obviously want more food than they need.
Exhibit B: how many people eat to deal with depression and stress...and while I've never been to prison, I don't think it's a very happy place with lots of things you can indulge in.
Exhibit C: as stated above, many components of a meal can be used to make things like fermented alcoholic beverages. So it's not always food, per se, that is being traded but rather the precursors of other things which are also desirable.
And you assume that every single prisoner has the exact same caloric needs...whether they're a skinny old guy or an 18-year-old who is hitting the weights every chance they get. I find it profoundly impossible for that to be true.
Prisoners going hungry seems cruel to me.
You do know what a prison IS, don't you? Seriously?
For your security, this post has been encrypted with ROT-13, twice.
And you assume that every single prisoner has the exact same caloric needs...whether they're a skinny old guy or an 18-year-old who is hitting the weights every chance they get. I find it profoundly impossible for that to be true.
No, I assume the prisoners get to choose the amount, or get sufficient that it is enough for everyone. The latter will obviously mean a lot is wasted.
You do know what a prison IS, don't you? Seriously?
It is a place where people lose their freedom in order to punish and rehabilitate them.
Finally! A year of moderation! Ready for 2019?
If I were a prisoner, I'd be a little more concerned with gangs, rape, or both at once. Whether someone went through a line twice or not for extra pudding....meh.
That being said, it's great to see humans being productive even while behind bars.